Premier vows to 'declare war against pollution'

Building China into a beautiful homeland with a sound ecological environment was highlighted among issues concerning people's livelihood in Premier Li Keqiang's Government Work Report, delivered to the National People's Congress on Wednesday.

With dense smog and haze covering more than 1.8 million square kilometers in February, and 3.33 million hectares of the country's arable land, almost the size of Belgium, contaminated as revealed by an official soil survey in December, Li vowed to "declare war against pollution and fight it with the same determination we battled poverty".

"We will strengthen energy conservation and emissions reduction and impose a ceiling on total energy consumption. This year, we aim to cut energy intensity by more than 3.9 percent," he said.