The scenic demarcation line of the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province Photo: VCG

China's environmental authority vowed on Tuesday to step up legislative efforts in environmental protection of the seas and announced policy achievements for this year.

Quality of offshore water improved in the first half of 2019 with 76.5 percent of offshore sea water reaching good quality, a 6.7 percent increase year-on-year, according to a statement China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

The Bohai Sea's good quality index reached 70 percent, 79.4 percent and 86.4 percent in the first three seasons of the year respectively.  The Bohai Sea is China's rests near Beijing and Tianjin municipalities  and is surrounded by Northeast China's Liaoning Province and North China's Hebei Province and East China's Shandong Province.

In 2018, the duty of sea environment protection transferred from the State Oceanic Administration to the MEE. The MEE has since further promoted protection work of sea ecology and environment.

According to the statement, the MEE is supporting the amendment of the Marine Environmental Protection Law to better adapt to the need of high-quality economic development in coastal areas and sea ecology protection.

The MEE also vowed to enhance overall supervision on sea pollution and environment emergency incidents.

Challenges to protecting the seas still remain, such as some coastal areas lacking sufficient awareness and attention on sea protection, and the persistence of illegal sea sand digging and pulling waste, it noted.