World Bank offers more loans to China for floods control, environment

The World Bank has approved loans totaling 260 million U.S. dollars to China for flood control and environmental improvement projects, the bank's China office said Thursday.

The new loans came just one day after the World Bank lent five Chinese provinces 100 million U.S. dollars to increase diversified forest cover and improve the management of forest resources.

Among the 260 million U.S. dollars worth of new loans, 200 million dollars will be offered to the Huaihe River Basin Flood Management and Drainage Improvement Project, located in Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong and Hubei provinces in central and eastern China.

The project will supplement the Chinese government's efforts in strengthening flood control and drainage infrastructure in the region by focusing on medium and small sized works on the Huaihe river's tributaries in the poorer rural areas, the World Bank said.

According to the bank, the loans will finance construction or rehabilitation of dikes, flood control works, waterways and other infrastructure, enhancement of disaster assessment and support systems including collection, transmission and processing of information and data on river floods and drainage, and capacity building for local project implementation entities.

The other 60 million U.S. dollars will go to the Yunnan Urban Environmental Project II to provide additional financing to the ongoing project and fund development of two water supply treatment plants, expansion of waste-water treatment capacity and river environment improvement in the new urban development area, said the bank.

Source: Xinhua