the development of tiered medical diagnosis and treatment and healthcare consortiums has picked up pace.
We have consistently made appropriate increases to basic old-age pensions for retirees. We have raised subsistence allowances, benefits for entitled groups, and other allowances, and improved the social assistance system, ensuring the livelihoods of close to 60 million people on subsistence allowances or living in extreme poverty. We have put in place a system to provide living allowances for people with disabilities in financial difficulty and nursing care subsidies for people with serious disabilities, a system that has benefited over 21 million people. All couples can now have two children.
We have moved faster to develop cultural programs, and seen the cultural industry grow at an average annual rate of over 13 percent. We have carried out Fitness-for-All programs, which are now in full swing; and Chinese athletes have excelled in competition.
Eighth, with a commitment to achieving harmony between human and nature, we have taken major steps to address pollution, and achieved notable progress in ecological conservation.
We have established the notion that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets and acted with resolve and intensity as never before to strengthen environmental protection.
We have struck out hard against air pollution, thus achieving a drop of over 30 percent in the average density of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in key areas. We have done more to reduce the use of low quality coal, pushed for progress in energy conservation and emission reductions in key industries, and seen 71 percent of coal-fired power plants achieving ultra-low emissions. We have improved the energy mix, cutting the share of coal consumption by 8.1 percentage points and increasing the share of clean energy consumption by 6.3 percentage points. We have improved fuel quality, and taken over 20 million high-emission and old vehicles off the roads.
We have strengthened prevention and control measures against water pollution in key drainage basins and sea areas, and achieved zero growth in chemical fertilizer and pesticide use. We have pursued major ecological conservation and restoration projects, expanded the coverage of initiatives to turn marginal farmland into forest, grassland, and wetlands, and intensified comprehensive efforts to curb desertification, rock desertification, and soil erosion.
We have launched central government inspections on environmental protection and investigated and prosecuted cases involving legal violations.
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