China's environmental quality communiqué released Thursday said the country's offshore marine pollution was alleviated in 2003, while the offshore seawater quality near some big Chinese cities worsened.

The China State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) Thursday released its national environmental quality communiqué. The communiqué said that in 2003, over half of the monitored Chinese offshore areas had seawater quality reaching Grade I or Grade II standard, 0.5 percentage point up over the previous year.

The communiqué said the proportion of monitored points with seawater quality reaching or worse than Grade IV also decreased 5.9 percentage points over last year to 30 percent.

According to the communiqué, offshore seawater quality was relatively good in Guangxi, Liaoning and Shandong provinces, with Grade I and Grade II seawater reaching 70 percent and even higher.

While the offshore seawater quality in Shanghai and Tianjin was relatively poor, in Shanghai, it was worse than Grade IV, and in Tianjin, there was no Grade I or Grade II offshore seawater at all, said the communiqué.

For the four seas in China, the general water quality of the Yellow Sea and South China Sea was relatively good in 2003, the seawater quality in the Bohai Sea was improved while that of the East China Sea was relatively poor, said the communiqué.

(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2004)