Wang Jingli

wangjingli0715@163.com

SHENZHEN’S air quality in January ranked fifth among 168 key cities in China, statistics released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment showed.

A total of nine cities from Guangdong Province entered the list’s top 20. In addition to Shenzhen, the other eight cities are Huizhou, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhaoqing, Foshan, Zhongshan, Guangzhou and Jiangmen.

The five best cities for air quality in January were Lhasa in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, Fuzhou in Fujian Province, Haikou in Hainan Province and Huizhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.

In January, the country’s average PM2.5 concentration, a key air pollution indicator, decreased to 55 micrograms per cubic meter, down 1.8% year on year.

Officials from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said the ratio of the number of good air quality days in 339 prefecture and above-level cities was 74.3%, up by 0.9 percentage points year on year.

Latest data showed that Shenzhen’s PM2.5 concentration stood at 16 micrograms per cubic meter from January to November in 2022.