North China's Hebei province will strive to improve air quality further this year after last year was recorded as its best year for cleaner air since air monitoring PM 2.5 started in 2013.

"We will continuously make efforts to improve the ecological environment," Hebei Governor Xu Qin said on Monday in a government work report to an annual session of the Provincial People's Congress. 

In 2018, the average concentration of PM 2.5 particles in the province was cut by 14 percent year-on-year to 56 micrograms per cubic meter, down from 108 micrograms per cubic meter in 2013, according to Hebei Provincial Bureau of Ecology and Environment.

Readings of PM 2.5, particularly hazardous particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, are used as a major reference point for air quality.

"The target for this year is to reduce the reading by more than 5 percent," Xu said in the government work report, adding that the task to improve the environment has many difficulties.

"With continuous efforts in recent years to curb air pollution, Hebei has made great progress in air quality, but the room for us to improve has been reduced," said Gao Jianmin, head of the Hebei Provincial Bureau of Ecology and Environment.

Compared with 2013, when the province started to monitor PM 2.5, Hebei had 208 days with good air quality last year, up from 129 days.

The number of days with heavy air pollution in Hebei decreased to 17, down from 80 days in 2013.

In 2018, the province shut down nearly 17,000 heavy polluting companies. More than 1.8 million households replaced coal with clean energy for winter heating.

This year, industrial companies will be required to upgrade equipment to reduce emissions, clean energy will replace more coal, and pollutants, such as volatile organic compounds, dust, and vehicle exhaust, will be further curbed, according to the work report.

Xu also disclosed in the work report that development and construction in the Xiongan New Area in the province will be advanced with high quality this year.

Design work for the urban layout, street views and buildings in the area will be done, in an effort to establish a landscape that features traditional Chinese and innovative styles, he said. 

Non-capital functions, including universities, research institutes, medical institutions, company headquarters and financial institutions, will start to be transferred from Beijing to Xiongan, about 100 kilometers southwest of the capital, according to the work report.

The area also will speed up bringing in high-end and high-tech industries that focus on information technology, modern life science and biotechnology, aiming to develop into an innovation model zone.

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