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Let ${𝒫}_2$ denote a positive integer with at most $2$ prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. For integers $a$, $q$ such that $(a,q)=1$, let ${𝒫}_2(q,a)$ denote the least ${𝒫}_2$ in the arithmetic progression ${\{nq+a\}}_{n=1}^{\infty }$. It is proved that for sufficiently large $q$, we have $${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.825}.$$ This result constitutes an improvement upon that of J. Li, M. Zhang and Y. Cai (2023), who obtained ${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.8345}.$