The Standing Committee of the 13th Jiangsu People's Congress, the provincial legislature, deliberated the report on the annual environmental situation during the 22nd meeting on March 30.

The report shows that, by the end of 2020, Jiangsu exceeded the target in all nine indicators set by the state, reaching its best performance of ecological and environmental quality.

Wang Tianqi, director of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, said the province’s environmental quality continued to improve in last year while the GDP expanded by 3.7% year-on-year to reach 10.27 trillion yuan. Jiangsu fully completed the state targets and the overall environmental quality was the best since the start of the 13th Five-Year Plan.

File photo of improving water environment of Yangtze River Photo/CFP

Jiangsu's air quality kept improving in 2020, with a fall of PM2.5 concentrations by 11.6%, the seventh consecutive decrease since 2013. Good air quality days accounted for 81 percent, up 9.6 percentage points. The quality of water and sound environment also got better. The soil environment maintained a stable quality, and 93.8% of monitoring points found pollutants below the risk level. The province’s 13 cities that have subordinate districts all achieved good environmental performance.

In addition, 93.3% of respondents were satisfied with ecological environment situation, 3.1 percent points higher.

Jiangsu's targets for environmental work this year are to control the PM2.5 concentration at 37 micrograms per cubic meter and ensure the percentage of good air quality days at 81.3%. The proportion of water quality better than Grade III in monitored sections will reach 87%. The decrease rate of major pollutant emissions will also meet the national requirements, and the carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will drop by 4.2%.

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