The air quality in smog-plagued Mexico City improved in 2004, the daily newspaper Reforma reported Wednesday. Environmental protection officials in the Mexican capital said that air quality was considered acceptable on 143 days this year, the most in 15 years. Mexico City has long been infamous for severe smog. During the early 1990s, the city often recorded only about 30 days a year with acceptable pollution levels under the country's environmental standards. Rafael Ramos, head of Mexico City's air monitoring programme, credited the recent improvements to requirements for catalytic converters and regular pollution inspections of car exhaust systems. "One shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the air quality on the majority of days is still bad, even though it's a completely different situation from the '90s," he said.
