Blue skies ahead for Shanghai, survey says

SHANGHAI: The air is getting cleaner and the sky bluer in this busy metropolis, the local environmental protection bureau said yesterday.

According to official figures, from 2006, 8 tons of dust per square kilometer fell on the city, down 23 percent on 2003. And in the same period, the concentration of inhalable particles per cubic meter of air dropped 11.3 percent to 0.086 mg.

As a result, 85 percent of the days last year were recorded as having "fair" or "good" air quality. And local people appear to have noticed the improvements.