Despite facing challenges in environmental protection amid efforts to boost its economic recovery, China has made consistent progress over the past year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said.

In 2024, the average density of PM2.5 particulate matter in the country's 339 major cities was 29.3 micrograms per cubic meter, down 2.7 percent year-on-year, the ministry said in a statement issued after its annual work conference that was held on Tuesday and Wednesday.

This means the concentration of the air pollutants that can penetrate deeply into the lungs has remained below China's interim national standard of 35 mcg/cubic meters for five straight years, it said.

The ministry also revealed that the proportion of days with fairly good air quality — considered to be below 100 on a 0-500 air quality index scale — in the country reached 87.2 percent last year, up 1.7 percentage points from the previous year.

The accomplishment was attributed to a series of initiatives implemented by the ministry to advance efforts to ensure blue skies.

Roughly 2 million rural households in northern China, for example, said farewell to coal as a heating source in 2024, the statement said. Approximately 80 percent of the nation's crude steel production capacity has undergone either comprehensive ultra-low emission transformations or targeted upgrades in key segments of their production processes.

The statement also noted unprecedented improvements in the quality of the country's surface water. About 90.4 percent of surface water nationwide was reported to be of fairly good quality last year, a 1 percentage point increase from 2023, the ministry stated.

It was the first time that the proportion of fair good quality water across the country exceeded 90 percent.

China has a five-tier quality system for surface water, with Grade I the best.

The country has seen black and odorous water bodies essentially eradicated in urban areas of cities at and above the prefecture level, the ministry said. In the nation's county seats, 80 percent of heavily polluted water bodies have been treated.

The ministry pledged a series of measures to forge ahead with the country's "Beautiful China" initiative.

A priority for the ministry in 2025 is to further deepen the reform of the country's mechanisms to work towards the realization of an ecological civilization.

The ministry also aims to spearhead technological innovation in environmental protection and bolster the nation's environmental monitoring system.

It said initiatives will be implemented to facilitate the intelligent evolution of the national environmental monitoring network and establish a space-air-ground-sea integrated monitoring network.