Liaoning Province, China's traditional industrial base, has witnessed marked progress in pollution control and environmental protection, thanks to effective efforts in previous years, according to local officials.

By the end of 2002, the province had established 79 soot control areas covering 1160.6 square kilometers, and 88 areas conforming to environmental noise standards covering 791.7 square kilometers, according to statistics released by the provincial statistics bureau.

Five of the 14 cities under air quality monitoring reached level II, or fairly good (pollution reading: 51 to 100), up 21.4 percentage points and five reached level III, or slightly polluted (pollution reading: 101 to 200), up 7.1 percentage points.

The province has so far established five state-level bio-model areas and 70 natural reserves with 10 at state level, covering 2.815 million hectares or 9.7 percent of the total area of the province.

(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2003)