China on Tuesday unveiled its first regional green development index ranking, which takes into account economic performance as well as various environmental indicators. East China’s Jiangsu province was ranked among the top ten with its resources utilization index ranking second in the country.
The index listed regional governments which promote environmentally friendly development, with Beijing coming out top, though it came second-to-last in a survey of public satisfaction.
The heavily polluted capital was first in the ranking of 31 provinces and regions for 2016, which was published by the National Bureau of Statistics, followed by Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, while Tibet and Xinjiang were the lowest ranked regions.
Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing and is home to several cities with some of the worst air pollution in the world, was ranked 20th.
The green development index ranking came one year after the central authority decided to use the index to measure local government performance on green growth and ecological development as the country focuses more on high-quality development. Results of the review will be a key reference in the promotion of officials, and punishment for any wrongdoing.
President Xi Jinping said in October that fighting pollution was one of China's key tasks through 2020, and the government has vowed to reduce air pollution across 28 northern cities this winter.
Efforts will be taken to improve the green development index system and better the annual evaluation system for local government performance on ecological development, Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS, said.
By measuring overall progress on ecological civilization construction over the last year, the annual evaluation guides all regions to push forward green development, and implement ecological civilization construction, Ning added.
The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Communist Party's Organization Department jointly published the data with the statistics bureau.
