CAPPED WHITE: A man takes photos of snow-blanketed trees at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on March 20 (LI WEN)

Air Monitoring

A national air-quality monitoring network with nearly 950 monitoring stations is expected to be operational in 190 Chinese cities by the end of the year, a senior environmental official said on March 15.

There are plans to build about 440 air-quality observation points in 116 cities this year after 496 such points were built in 74 cities in 2012, said Wu Xiaoqing, Vice Minister of Environmental Protection.

Wu also underlined the serious pollution in south China's Pearl River Delta, in east China's Yangtze River Delta and north China's Beijing and Tianjin municipalities.

The three areas cover about 8 percent of China's total landmass but discharge five times more air pollutants per square km than other areas, Wu said.

By 2015, the ministry aims to reduce the intensity of PM2.5, air-borne particles measuring 2.5 microns or less in diameter, in those three regions by 6 percent from the 2010 level, he said.

Desalination Trials

The first batch of regions and companies has been selected to carry out seawater desalination pilot programs in China.

It is the latest move to boost development in the sector. The list, released by the National Development and Reform Commission earlier this month, includes Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, Binhai New Area in Tianjin, Bohai New Area in Hebei Province, and several industrial parks and companies.

China announced a five-year development plan for the seawater desalination sector last year to ease the country's water shortages.

The country aims to convert 2.2 million cubic meters of seawater into freshwater per day by 2015, compared with 660,000 cubic meters in 2011, according to the 2011-15 plan. It is expected more than half of freshwater channeled to isles and more than 15 percent of water delivered to coastal factories will come from the sea by 2015.

Industrial analysts estimated the development plan will require investment of around 21 billion yuan ($3.38 billion).

Transport Investment

Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region will invest 22 billion yuan ($3.54 billion) in transport construction this year, a senior regional official said.

A highway from regional capital Lhasa to Nyingchi and four airport highways will be constructed, according to Tashi Gyatso, head of the Tibet Transport Department.

The region will also carry out 194 construction projects to make highways available to 258 villages to reach the region's goal of linking 99.14 percent of villages to highways.

A total of more than 5,000 km of highways will be completed this year, in addition to the construction of four county-level passenger bus stations and two cargo stations.

The region spent 10.1 billion yuan ($1.62 billion) last year in improving its transport infrastructure, up 18.8 percent year on year.