BEIJING - China
plans to invest about 40 billion yuan (US$5
billion) over the next 10 years on drinking-water
projects in rural areas, said Minister of Water
Resources Wang Shucheng.
The plan will be
implemented in two phases, said Wang. Phase 1 is
aimed at providing 160 million rural residents
with drinking water in the next five years, while
in Phase 2 all Chinese rural residents will be
provided with potable water by 2015.
Wang
said 312 million Chinese villagers are facing water
shortages or have water
supplies contaminated by fluorine, arsenic, high
levels of salt, or other organic or industrial
pollutants. Although the budget for the
investment in drinking-water projects has not been
firmly set, the minister said the government
planned to invest about 40 billion yuan over the
next decade.
Wang said China is likely to
exceed by far its United Nations Millennium
Development Goal, which is to reduce by half the
number of people without sustainable access to
drinking water by 2015.
Worldwide, one in
six people is without potable water and in China
there are more than 50 diseases caused and spread
by unsafe water, said Vice Minister of Water
Resources Zhai Haohui. China's 11th Five-year
Projection for Social and Economic Development
(2006-10), approved by the National People's
Congress in March, called for portable water to be
provided to 100 million rural residents. That
target figure was raised to 160 million after a
State Council conference on rural drinking-water
safety held on August 30.
Wang said the
increased pace in providing drinking water to
China's thirsty rural areas is in line with the
government's plan to build a new socialist
countryside.
He said the government will
increase investment in rural water-supply projects
and encourage more private investment in rural
infrastructure construction.
Wang said
more capital from the central government will flow
into the poorer western regions of China in the
coming years, with the rich eastern region
encouraged to open parts of its rural water supply
to private investors by offering them favorable
investment policies.
Urban water-supply
facilities are to be extended to suburban
villages, while rural villages are to see the
construction of their own water-supply facilities,
said the minister.
In areas where water is
contaminated by fluorine, arsenic or high levels
of salt, special water-treatment and water-supply
facilities will be built, said Wang.
Tang
Min, chief economist with the China Mission of the
Asian Development Bank, said the Chinese
government's decision to give rural people access
to potable water shows that China has aligned
itself with the new concept of scientific
development and a "people-centered" approach.
Tang said great changes have taken place
in China's development strategy in recent years.
It has shifted, he said, from the simple pursuit
of economic growth to the development of harmony
between economic goals and social needs.
Ministry of Water Resources statistics
show that China's per capita water resources are
only a quarter of the average world level.
The statistics also show that China has
built more than 3 million rural water-supply
projects since 1949, benefiting 273 million rural
residents. China spent 22.3 billion yuan from 2001
to 2005 to provide 67 million people with safe
water supplies.
Wang said that while China
works to resolve its own water problems, the
country is contributing more to the international
effort to solve the world's water crises. In
recent years, China has helped fund 83 water and
sanitation projects in developing countries, and
dispatched many water experts to African countries
to work on supply projects.
