China helps 109 mln rural people get safe drinking water: minister
24/12/2008 17:24
China said today that it has spent nearly 24 billion yuan (about US$3.5
billion) in the past two years to give more than 8 percent of its 1.3 billion
people safe drinking water.
Environmental Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian
said in a report to a plenary session of the National People's Congress Standing
Committee that more than 109 million rural people benefited from the water
investment since 2006.
Overall water quality last year was almost the same as
in 2006, he said, adding that greater efforts were made to curb pollution in
major streams.
The urban sewage treatment rate reached 63 per cent in 2007,
an 11 percentage-point rise from 2005, he said.
The central government has
built farm biogas projects and ramped up efforts to protect wetlands, build more
shelter belts and promote scientific fertilizer distribution in the
countryside.
The country has also clamped down on sources of pollution, he
said.
More than 1.6 million law enforcement officials investigated more than
700,000 enterprises nationwide, of which more than 15,000 were punished for
polluting the environment, he said.
Zhou's report is open for debate during
the meeting, which started on Monday.
Three other cabinet reports were also
submitted for discussion: a report on the implementation of the 11th Five-Year
Plan (2006-2010) on economic and social development, a report on commodity
prices and another report on the consequences of the international financial
crisis on the Chinese economy.
China has in recent years paid increasing
attention to environmental problems as it seeks to balance high economic growth
with a rational use of natural resources and reduce pollution.
Xinhua
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