Premier Zhu Rongji on Three Gorges Project Construction Quality

Premier Zhu Rongji on Three Gorges Project Construction Quality

Premier Zhu Rongji Sunday stressed that construction quality is the essential part of the Three Gorges Project.

Addressing the just-concluded Ninth Plenary Session of the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee (TGPCC) under the State Council, the premier urged the builders to step up environmental protection and ecological construction in the dam area and do a good job in the resettlement of local people.

Zhu, also head of the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee, added that efforts should still be made to readjust the industrial structures of the enterprises removed from the dam area, so as to realize coordinated development in the economic and social aspects as well as in ecological and environmental construction.

Wu Bangguo, vice-premier and deputy head of the TGPCC, and Qian Zhengying, leader of the project's quality supervision group, also attended the session.

The session fully confirmed the achievements and progress made in the eight years since the project was launched. The successful damming of the Yangtze River on November 8, 1997 marked the completion of the first phase of the project.

The second phase of the project, started in 1998, has been going smoothly, with the quality level being good in general.

By April this year, the Three Gorges Project had completed earth and stone work totaling 168.8 million cubic meters.

And by March this year, some 227,000 people living in the dam area had been resettled in residences with floor space totaling 13.

33 million square meters.

The plenary meeting urged all the builders to bear in mind their historical responsibility, and give top priority to the construction quality of this gigantic project.

The session called on parties concerned to complete the task of resettling local people to ensure that water storage in the dam can be completed by 2003.