Safety and a healthy environment are among the key safeguards for social and economic development, according to members of Shaanxi Provincial Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Among the key issues was controlling the smog and traffic in Xi'an, the provincial capital.

The ambient air quality bulletin issued by the Xi'an environmental protection administration bureau showed that there were 227 polluted days in 2013 in the city, and there were only nine days with good air quality last year.

The province's eleventh conference started on Jan 13. Wang Shaohua, a member of the provincial committee, introduced his proposal of controlling fog and haze to the session, saying that a safe environment is key to economic development.

Gao Hui, another member, supported Wang's idea and asked society to pay more attention to protecting the environment.

Xi'an had 1.873 million vehicles as of the end of 2013, 926,800 of which were private cars. The number of cars is increasing at a rate of 300 per day.

The members reached a consensus that automobile exhaust is one of the main causes of haze, and traffic jams have increased car emissions.

Members suggested that public transportation should be greatly developed and residents should be encouraged to take buses or other means of public transportation.

Member Qu Xiaoling suggested increasing the number of buses and introducing free buses to encourage more people to ride them.

And another member, Zhang Ping'an, suggested building a lane for bicycles.