Residents of Shanghai, China's leading industrial and commercial city, had clean air for 288 days in 2000, statistics show.

According to Shanghai Environment Monitoring Center, the city only had one heavily-polluted day and nine moderately-polluted days in 2000, compared with 46 days of moderately or heavily polluted days in 1999.

Shanghai also had 40 to 50 consecutive days of clean air last summer and autumn, respectively, the center said.

Shanghai has taken measures to curb air pollution in recent years. At present, more than 98 percent of local households have used gas instead of coal.

At the same time, more than 100 polluting enterprises a year have been moved out of downtown Shanghai. The number of enterprises in the downtown area has been reduced to 1,500 from around 5,000.

The city has also developed the tertiary sector, which now accounts for 50 percent of Shanghai's total gross domestic product. More importantly, technical innovations have been enhanced in traditional metallurgical, power and building materials enterprises.

An increasing grass area in the city has also contributed to the improvement of the local environment. At present, the per capita greenbelt for Shanghai residents is 4.6 square meters. Last year, the city planted 828 hectares of grass.

(People’s Daily 01/10/2001)