China's leading city of Shanghai will absorb a total of 5,500 immigrants from the Three Gorges Project site on the Yangtze River in two to three years.

These people from Yunyang County of Chongqing, China's fourth municipality, will be relocated on Chongming Island at the estuary of the river, according to China Daily.

Shanghai has set up a special office in charge of their resettlement.

"The Three Gorges Project is for the benefit of the whole nation," Shanghai Mayor Xu Kuangdi was quoted as saying. "Shanghai should shoulder its own share of the responsibility."

The newcomers will be placed in 48 villages, where they will continue their farm work or secure jobs in many of the island's township factories.

China will inject about 40 billion yuan into relocating the residents affected by the Three Gorges Project which will dam the Yangtze River in an area bordering Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality.

From 1993 to the end of 1999, 220,000 people had been relocated to higher elevations in the Three Gorges area.