On July 4, the Guangzhou municipal government passed a three-year action plan to improve the city's air quality.

The plan detailed air quality improvement targets for 2018, 2019 and 2020, and stated that Guangzhou will strive to achieve significant reduction in its annual fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration levels and pollution days by 2020.

In 2017, the annual average concentration of PM2.5 in Guangzhou was 35 micrograms per cubic meter, which reached the national secondary standard and was 18 micrograms lower than that in 2013. The average annual concentration of PM10 was 56 micrograms per cubic meter, 16 micrograms lower than 2013's figure.

The plan combines the requirements of Guangdong province with the relevant planning and deployment of Guangzhou, and lists air quality improvement targets for 2018, 2019 and 2020.

It rolls out 52 specific measures from optimizing energy and industrial structure, deepening control of industrial pollution caused by coal burning, motor vehicles, ships, and catering industries, to improving responses to law enforcement supervision, and scientific and technological support. It also refines the responsible units for those measures.

Guangzhou will use the action plan as its map and ensure that the air pollution prevention and control measures are implemented one by one, according to officials from the city's environmental protection bureau.