Government takes pollution battle up a notch

China is making progress battling air pollution, but the frequent choking smog hitting vast regions in recent weeks requires further control, a senior environmental official said on Friday.

To that end, the central government has listed new binding targets in the national environment road map for the next five years.

The 338 cities under regular monitoring have had more days of good air quality - 81.4 percent of days in the first 10 months - a year-on-year increase of 3.6 percent, and have seen a drop in the concentration of major air pollutants, Zhao Yingmin, vice-minister of environmental protection, said at a news conference in Beijing on Friday.