Anybody who lives in northern and central China must have terrible memories of the heavy smog that descended on the major cities there. The Ministry of Environmental Protection warned a total of 23 cities, including Beijing municipality, to issue red alerts on air pollution. Six of those cities are in Henan province.

However, that list does not include Pingdingshan, one of the main coal producing sites in the country, and Henan's biggest coal producer. The air there was never sweet, but it was at least better than the air in red alert areas - and people did not need to wear a face mask all day.

The reason Pingdingshan was left off the list is because, heeding the country's leadership call for overcapacity to be trimmed, Pingdingshan has been optimizing its economic structure by making it greener for years. In the first half year of 2015, its raw coal production was 61.6 million metric tons, 11.6 percent lower than the previous year.

China Pingmei Shenma Group, one of the city's main coal companies, has shut down 14 mines and cut 2.58 million tons of production capability, and it plans to cut more in 2017. There are several more coal companies taking similar action.

Yet the city's GDP kept up a moderate growth rate of 4.6 percent in the first half of the year. More importantly, the registered urban unemployment rate is roughly 4.3 percent, even lower than that of the first half of 2015. Considering that CPSG has cut 18,000 jobs alone, this is a hard-won achievement.

The secret lies in encouraging greener industries. "Being officially recognized nationally as an excellent tourist attraction, Pingdingshan is rich in tourism resources," said Zhang Guowei, the city's mayor. "We have been developing the city's economy by developing the tourist industry here."

The city's abundant tourist attractions include the Yaoshan Mountain Buddha Sculpture, which is a national 5A-level tourist site, the highest rating, as well as a nation-level ecological tourist area. Besides that, there are six 4A-level tourist sites and 19 A-level ones.

By August 2016, these sites received 21.2 million visitors in total, bringing in revenues of 8.8 billion yuan ($1.3 billion). Currently, the tourism sector provides at least 100,000 jobs for the city, including those at 3,000 local hotels and 49 travel agencies.

Besides tourism, high-tech companies also enjoy a favorable environment in Pingdingshan, because they can help the city's economic structure become greener.

Henan Governor Chen Run'er said: "Enterprises must continue to innovate. This helps optimize the economic structure."

Pinggao Group, a branch of State Grid Corp of China, the nation's electrical power giant, is one of the high-tech companies that came here. The group first introduced the technology for an SF6 circuit-breaker years ago, when the whole country lacked a domestically produced oil circuit-breaker. That's one of the 568 patents the company has received during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), with an investment of 1.5 billion yuan on R&D from the city.

Contact the writers through zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn