Monitoring of oceanic water quality at 288 offshore monitoring stations indicated that oceanic water met the national quality standard Grade I and II in 67.7 percent of the stations, up 0.4 percentage point from the previous year; water quality at 8 percent of the stations met Grade III standard, down by 0.9 percentage point; and water of Grade IV or inferior quality was found in 24.3 percent of the stations, up by 0.5 percentage point. A total of 149,000 square km of oceanic waters did not meet the quality standard for clean oceanic water, an increase of about 10,000 square km. Of this total, seriously polluted oceanic area occupied 29,000 square km.

In the 559 cities covered by air quality monitoring program, 349 cities reached or topped air quality standard Grade II, accounting for 62.4 percent of all cities under the program; 159 cities attained Grade III, accounting for 28.4 percent; and air quality in 51 cities was inferior to Grade III, accounting for 9.1 percent. Of the 378 cities subject to noise monitoring program, 5 percent enjoyed fairly good environment, 63.8 percent had good environment, 29.3 percent had light noise pollution, 1.6 percent experienced medium noise pollution and 0.3 percent of cities suffered serious noise pollution in downtown areas.

In 2006, the total emission of chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the whole country reached 14.31 million tons, up by 1.2 percent over the previous year; and that of the sulphur dioxide (SO2) was 25.94 million tons, up 1.8 percent.

At the end of 2006, the daily treatment capacity of municipal sewage reached 61.22 million cubic meters, up 6.9 percent. Municipal sewage treatment rate was 56 percent, up 4 percentage points. The floor space with central heating systems amounted to 2.65 billion square meters, up 5.1 percent. Greenery coverage reached 33.5 percent of the urban area, up 1 percentage point.

In 2006, natural disasters caused 252.8 billion yuan worth of direct economic loss, up 23.8 percent. Natural disasters hit 41.09 million hectares of crops, up 5.9 percent, of which 5.41 million hectares of crops were demolished, up 17.7 percent. The year witnessed 7,775 forest fires, which were 3,767 less than that in the previous year. There were five extra big forest fires in 2006, two more than that in the previous year. The fires hit 410,000 hectares of forest, 4.5 times more than that in 2005. Oceanic disasters caused a direct economic loss of 21.8 billion yuan, down by 34.3 percent. The occurrence of 93 red tides in the year, 11 tides more than that in 2005, hit an accumulative area of 19,840 square km, down by 26.7 percent. China registered 102,800 geological disasters that left a death toll of 663 and made a total direct economic loss of 4.42 billion yuan. The country recorded 14 earthquakes with magnitude 5 and over on Richter scale, 10 of which caused disasters, hitting 667,000 people in the Mainland and an area of 7,168 square km, down by 68 percent and 52.3 percent respectively, and causing a direct economic loss of 800 million yuan, a decline of 69.6 percent.

The death toll due to work accidents amounted to 112,822 people, a year-on-year decrease of 11.2 percent. The death toll from work accidents every 100 million yuan worth of GDP was 0.56 person, a decline of 20.4 percent. Work accidents in industrial, mining and commercial enterprises caused 3.33 deaths out of every 100,000 employees, down 13.5 percent. The death toll for producing 1 million tons of coal in coal mines was 2.04 persons, down 27.4 percent. The year 2006 witnessed 378,781 traffic accidents, claiming 89,455 lives, injuring 431,000 people and causing a direct property loss of 1.49 billion yuan. The death toll per 10,000 vehicles was 6.2 persons, down by 18.4 percent.

Notes:

1. All figures in this Communiqué are preliminary statistics.

2. Statistics in this Communiqué do not include those from Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan Province.

3. Due to the rounding-off reasons, the subentries may not add up to the aggregate totals.

4. Gross domestic product (GDP) and added value as quoted in this Communiqué are calculated at current prices, whereas their growth rates are at comparable prices.

5. Output and consumption of rolled steel include duplicated counting of rolled steel as intermediate inputs used for producing other types of rolled steel.

6. The national total of investment in fixed assets is larger than the aggregate sum by adding up the subtotals of investment in fixed assets in the eastern areas, central areas, western areas and northeastern areas due to the fact that some of the non-classified investments are not covered by regional figures.

7. The investment in real estate includes the investment made in real estate development, construction of buildings for own use, property management, intermediary services and other real estate development.

8. The consumption of water and energy for producing 10,000 yuan worth of GDP is calculated at 2005 constant prices. The turnover of post and telecommunication services is calculated at constant prices of 2000.

(Source: www.stats.gov.cn)