The number of days with good air quality in Beijing from January to June accounts for 55.9 percent of the total. This photo was taken at dusk in the Haidian District, Beijing, on June 27, 2018. (Photo/China.org.cn)
The number of days with good air quality in Beijing from January to June accounted for 55.9 percent of the total, an increase of 0.9 percentage points compared to the same period last year, according to a report from an official at China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment on July 22.
The PM2.5 density was 56 micrograms per cubic meter, down by 15.2 percent year-on-year, and the Chinese capital saw the number of days with good air quality reaching 36.7 percent in June, on par with the same period last year, the official said.
According to the requirements stipulated by a three-year action plan on air pollution control, which was recently released, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has expanded the number of cities in an air quality ranking from 74 to 169 cities. The list includes a number of key cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and neighboring areas witnessed the average percentage of days with good air quality reaching 16.7 percent in June with an annual decline of 10.8 percentage points, and the PM2.5 density decreasing by 16 percent to 42 micrograms per cubic meter from the levels in 2017. From January to June, the average percentage of good-air days was 44.9 percent with an increase of 0.6 percentage points, and the PM2.5 density decreased by 14.3 percent to 66 micrograms per cubic meter year-on-year.
