Maoming in South China's Guangdong province was officially rated as a "national sanitary city" by the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee (NPHCC) on Jan 14 after data reviews, undercover investigations, technology evaluations, comprehensive assessments, and a social publicity drive.

The city has spent more than 7 billion yuan ($1.08 billion) to promote its infrastructure development, and made comprehensive improvements to its "villages", urban-rural fringe areas, old residential communities and farmers' markets.

Over the past three years, the city has met the 11 conditions and 40 indicators in eight categories that are required for it to gain national sanitary city status. Its infrastructure and its living environment have both seen continuous improvements.

The city topped the province in terms of the number of days with excellent or good air quality in 2020. These figures reached 98.9 percent - which is 6.3 percentage points higher than the previous year.

Maoming started the work of building itself into a national sanitary city in September 2017. It passed the technological evaluation for provincial-level sanitary city status in May 2019, and became a national sanitary city in November 2020.

The living environment in Maoming has been getting better and better in recent years. [Photo/WeChat account: maofabu]