The city of Datong, Shanxi province, was promoted as one of the most ecologically competitive cities at the 2013 Fifth China Ecological Civilization and Green Competitiveness Conference held in Datong on Sept 17.

Five cities were promoted as the most ecologically competitive cities at the 2013 Fifth China Ecological Civilization and Green Competitiveness Conference held in Datong, Shanxi province, on Sept 17. The five cities are Datong of Shanxi province, Ganzhou of Jiangxi province, Longyan of Fujian province, Suqian of Jiangsu province, and Zoucheng of Shandong province.

In recent years, the city of Datong has been making efforts in tree planting and ecological restoration. It has also been developing the low-carbon green industry, organic agriculture and the service industry.

Feng Lixiang, Datong municipal Party secretary, delivered a speech during the conference. He said that in the last decade, Datong has unswervingly implemented the "Constructing an Ecological City" strategy, increasing the city's green coverage rate by nearly 2 percent per year. Datong will continue to absorb advanced green concepts and will make great efforts to promote economic transformation and development of emerging industries, building Datong into a new-energy model city with green competitiveness.

The China Ecological Civilization and Green Competitiveness Conference is the first international event China has held in the ecological civilization field. Four sessions have been successfully held since 2008. It has effectively promoted communication and cooperation among the government, enterprises and academies.

This year, the conference was held to further publicize ecological civilization and low-carbon green concepts. It also seeks to promote economic ecologicalization and ecological industrialization, and build a dialogue platform for the ecological field nationwide and worldwide. The conference emphasizes the discussion of "green civilization" and "new urbanization" and cooperation in those fields.

At the conference, experts from the China Environment Protection Academy, National Development and Reform Commission, and other institutions also gave keynote speeches for ecological tourism promotion in Ganzhou, Longyan, Suqian and Zoucheng.

Edited by Michael Thai