A conference is held in Guangyuan, a city of Southwest China's Sichuan province, on March 16 to promote the exchanges on exploring economic benefits from ecological improvement. [Photo by Liu Ren]

Guangyuan, Southwest China's Sichuan province, has taken efforts to develop ecological agriculture and green energy and promote the health and wellness tourism, gaining tremendous economic benefit thanks to the improved ecological environment over the past few years.

He Shuping, Party secretary of the city, made the above remarks at a conference held in the city on March 16.

Guangyuan borders Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and it is an important ecological barrier and water source at the upper reaches of the Jialing River.

"The city has always attached great importance to natural and ecological conservation and its urban area has recorded good air quality on an average of over 98 percent days," He said, adding that the water quality of local rivers has generally reached class-one level.

Bailingou of Zhaohua district in Guangyuan is Sichuan's first township that has achieved the gross eco-system product (GEP) index. Meanwhile, Qingchuan county has also completed the calculation of its GEP and the building of relevant platforms.

Statistics shows that the total output value of local forestry and aquatic breeding industries reached 28 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) and 1.56 billion yuan respectively in 2022.

Last year, the revenues of Guangyuan's eco-agricultural products were reported at 76 billion yuan and the installed capacity of green energy and wind power hit three million kW.

So far, the city has had 22 scenic areas at 4A and above level and about 32,500 hectares of farmland labeled as organic agricultural bases and also fostered 365 organic agricultural products. Kiwifruits of Cangxi and tea products of Micangshan have been inscribed into the list of Chinese brands of value in 2022.