BEIJING ABLE TO ACHIEVE AIR QUALITY GOALS

Beijing: After grappling with alarming levels of smog, Beijing witnessed an improved air quality in 2017 after implementation of various pollution control measures, a Chinese official said on Wednesday. The Chinese capital city, which is notorious for its smog, met its targets with year- on- year improvement of regional air quality and overall favourable meteorological conditions, the Beijing Environmental Protection Monitoring Centre said. The average density of PM2.5 in Beijing stayed at 58 micrograms per cubic metre of air in 2017, meeting the goal set by the State Council, the official said. “The density dropped by 20.5 per cent compared with the average level in 2016,” Liu Baoxian, deputy director of Beijing environmental protection monitoring centre was quoted as saying in the state- run Xinhua news agency. The density of hazardous particulate in the air is measured as PM2.5. According to the World Health Organisation the annual PM2.5 level should be 10 micrograms per cubic metre. An air pollution prevention and control action plan, issued by the State Council in September 2013, mandate Beijing to reduce its PM 2.5 density to around 60 micrograms per cubic metre of air by 2017 from the average level of 90 micrograms per cubic metre of air in 2013. While the city continue to witness sporadic days of heavy pollution this winter, however, the Chinese capital remained mostly sunny and bright with clean air.