BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- China's ecological environment continued to improve in 2024, according to a report on last year's environmental protection efforts submitted to lawmakers for deliberation on Sunday.

The Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) started its four-day 15th session on Sunday in Beijing.

In 2024, China reported steady progress in air quality, as the proportion of days with good air quality reached 87.2 percent, up 1.7 percentage points from the previous year, while the proportion of heavily polluted days fell by 0.7 percentage points to 0.9 percent, said Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu while presenting the report.

The country's surface water quality also improved, while groundwater and seawater quality remained stable, Huang noted.

Efforts to curb soil pollution made progress, with heavy metal levels at key monitoring sites showing a declining trend and further soil deterioration preliminarily brought under control.

All environmental quality improvement targets for 2024 were met, surpassing the scheduled progress outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), Huang said.

Looking ahead to 2025, the final year of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Huang emphasized that environmental protection efforts will focus on fully achieving the plan's goals, including further reductions in PM2.5 levels and increases in the proportion of days with good air quality.■