Tongchuan, a former resource-based city in Shaanxi province, has successfully transformed itself into a sustainable development and environmentally-friendly city.

Xu Xihua, director of the city government information office, told China Daily that Tongchuan was listed as a pilot resource-based city for sustainable development in 2009 by the central government. It has been making efforts to transform into an environmentally-friendly leisure and health city from a city concentrating on coal and building materials industries, which seriously pollutes the city's environment.

Tongchuan's urban transformation work drew great attention and support from the central and provincial government. Zhao Zhengyong, secretary of the Shaanxi provincial Party committee, and Lou Qinjian, governor of Shaanxi province, are the head and deputy head, respectively, of the Tongchuan urban transformation work leading group.

Every year, Zhao and Lou chaired the working conference on urban transformation work in Tongchuan and made efforts to promote the transformation work, Xu said.

After four years of work by the government and local people, the environment of Tongchuan has been greatly improved. Economic development has been booming.

According to a survey made by the Shaanxi Provincial Information Center in 2012, Tongchuan's livability was the highest in the province, with better living conditions and a perfect environment.

The survey also found that the happiness index of residents in Tongchuan reached third place in the province with improved income levels, quality public health, education conditions, career development satisfaction and amateur life satisfaction.

The Chinese Urbanization Quality Report made by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and China Economic Weekly issued on March 11 listed Tongchuan 64th among 286 Chinese prefecture-level cities in urbanization quality.

In 2012, increases in Tongchuan's GDP, fixed asset investment and total retail sales of social consumer goods ranked first in the province, Xu said.

At present, this former coal city with serious pollution is on its way to becoming a sustainable development and environmentally-friendly city, the director said.