China released a national air quality report on Monday, covering 74 cities which adopted the new air quality standards in 2013.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said on its website that only eight of the 74 cities it monitors managed to meet national standards in 2014 on a series of pollution measures such as PM2.5, which is a reading of particles found in the air, carbon monoxide and ozone.
China said last year it would “declare war on pollution” and it has started to eliminate substandard industrial capacity and reduce coal consumption.
Beijing is not among the 10 Chinese cities with the worst air quality nor among the 10 Chinese cities with the best air quality.
Of the 10 worst-performing cities in 2014, seven were located in the heavy industrial province of Hebei, which surrounds the capital, Beijing, the ministry said. The cities of Baoding, Xingtai, Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Handan and Hengshui, all in Hebei, filled the top six places.
The ministry said the average PM2.5 reading in the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin region stood at 93 micrograms per cubic metre last year. The state standard is 35 micrograms but China does not expect to bring the national average down to that level before 2030.
The government has identified Hebei as a top priority when it comes to cutting smog, and it has set targets to slash coal consumption and close polluting industrial capacity, but the province has struggled to find alternative sources of growth.
