BEIJING - China on Thursday set thresholds for the entry into its lead-acid battery industry, the output of which accounts for more than a quarter of the world's total.

The annual capacity of new lead-acid battery production projects should surpass 500,000 kilovolt-ampere-hours at a single plant, according to the regulation, jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The regulation, coming into effect in July, aims to promote sustainable and healthy development of the industry while protecting the environment.

It requires the annual production capacity of an existing plant to be higher than 200,000 kilovolt-ampere-hours and sets a deadline of Dec 31, 2013, for existing plants to meet the threshold.