China's Water Conservancy Sector Enters New Stage

China's water conservancy sector has entered a new phase of development with greater investment and better planning since 1998.

Wang Shucheng, minister of Water Resources, made the remark Wednesday at a forum on water issues in China and the revision of the Water Law.

Li Peng, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, attended the forum.

In the past two years, the ministry has completed the planning of special projects to control the country's seven largest rivers as well as a guideline on the development of water conservancy in China.

In addition, China has worked out a number of plans on water conservancy, including the national plan for preventing floods, special plans for the development of water conservancy in the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005) and a 10-year plan on the issue.

There is also a plan for the development of water conservancy for western China and the national plan on the protection and utilization of water resources.

He said the efforts over the past two years have paid off. In 1999, flood-control facilities in the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze River played a successful role, although the water levels are the second highest following those recorded in the previous year, according to the official.

Over the past two years, the country built up water-efficient irrigation facilities for 4.33 million ha., while a total of 13.33 million ha. of cultivated land has benefited from various kinds of water-efficient measures, according to official figures.

The farmland saved 10 billion cubic meters of water and led to an increase of 5.6 billion kilograms in the country's grain production capacity.

Thanks to water projects built in the past two years, soil erosion has been curbed, at a certain degree, in an area of 500,000 square kilometers.

Since the catastrophic floods that attacked part of the country in 1998, central and local governments have stepped up the efforts to reinforce reservoirs that were weak or damaged in the floods.

Over 177 cities in the country have reached the national standard on flood prevention and 6,000 kilometer-long sea dikes, 44 percent of the total, have been reinforced.



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