Every evening during the Two Sessions, we recap the most important developments of the day. Tonight we focus on three press conferences covering issues inlcluding the environment, innovation and artificial intelligence.

The theme of this morning's briefing was on improving livelihoods. One of the gripes of many Chinese over the past couple of decades is the worsening air quality in many of the country's major cities. A senior environmental official said the government has been working hard to push through reform in this area.

HUANG RUNQIU CPPCC MEMBER DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION "On the one hand, we replaced coal with cleaner energy and shut down plants with heavy pollution in 28 cities of the region; on the other hand, we intensified our environmental protection inspections in all 28 cities, to make sure local government carry out environmental protection measures."

Another CPPCC member -- who's also the founder of one of China's largest e-commerce companies -- explained how entrepreneurs can take advantage of the country's thirst for innovation.

LIU QIANGDONG CPPCC MEMBER FOUNDER AND CEO OF JD.COM "First of all, you need to do valuable things. Second, the new era emphasizes achieving success above board, establishing a new relationship between government and business with intimacy and integrity. This gives our entrepreneurs a heads up to never break the law for profit. The third suggestion is persistence. You need to believe what you do is valuable to society."

Meanwhile, the minister of science and technology said China is taking a lead position in strategic high-tech sectors, such as space, deep-sea, super-computing and nuclear energy.

Wan Gang added the country was looking to intensify its research into next-generation Artificial Intelligence.

WAN GANG MINISTER OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY "The head of China's state assets regulator said the overall debt levels of the country's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises were under control."

Despite this, Xiao Yaqing said China was still implementing measures to reform SOE practices in an effort to boost efficiency. First, he referred to ten pilot projects -- involving 18 SOEs and about 40 sub-enterprises -- which were testing the measures. Second, he said the regulator was reviewing its equity diversification and mixed-ownership model at group level and lastly, he said they were looking to strategically reorganize the centrally administered SOEs.