BEIJING, Jan. 24 -- Mid-air suspending haze in Beijing for days made it more difficult for the national capital to achieve its target to have more blue sky days this year.    

    Beijing reported inferior air quality for nine days in a row from Jan. 14 to 22 and had serious air pollution on Saturday, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.     

    Beijing reported only eight clear days in a 22-day period since the beginning of January this year.     

    The municipality had 21 blue clear days in Jan. 2005 and 19 days with blue sky for the first month of 2004, the bureau said.    

    The city government has set a target to have 238 blue sky days this year, but the present hazy days has made Beijing harder to attain that goal this year, said a source with the local environment protection bureau.     

    Meteorologists said the going-on hazy climate would continue in the coming week as there would be no cold front and no strong wind to arrive.     

    Beijing residents enjoyed 234 days with blue sky in 2005, five days more than in the previous year, according to a report released by the municipal environmental protection supervision center.     

    The blue sky days account for 64.1 percent of all days throughout 2005. This means Beijing had over fulfilled its objective of having 230 blue sky days, set at the beginning of 2005.(source: China.org.cn)