Beijing's fight against pollution to continue in 2019

Beijing will further curb pollution in air, water and soil this year, with more measures to be taken including stronger controls on diesel cargo vehicles, the municipal environmental authority said on Wednesday.

Yu Jianhua, deputy director of the the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, said the city will work to cut annual and three-year average concentrations of PM 2.5, as well as improve water and soil quality to meet standards set for 2020 in a national plan.

The latest data shows average concentration of PM2.5 - hazardous fine particles with a diameter less than 2.5 microns - has dropped to 51 micrograms per cubic meter in 2018, down 12.1 percent on a year-on-year basis.

The average level of PM2.5 will continue to decline in 2019, Yu said.

In 2019, the capital will phase out 300 manufacturing and pollution-intensive enterprises, and gradually replace diesel-powered vehicles with new energy ones, he said.

According to data released by the bureau, vehicle exhaust emissions have been the major source of PM2.5, accounting for 45 percent of the total.

In July 2018, the State Council released a three-year action plan to curb air pollution by 2020, aiming for 80 percent of days in major cities to have good air quality by 2020 on average, and the average PM2.5 concentration is expected to decrease by 18 percent from the level in 2015.