Li Peng Meets CICLD Congress ParticipantsTop Chinese legislator Li Peng met Friday with some Chinese and foreign representatives to the 20th Congress of the International Commission on Large Dams (CICLD).Li, chairman of the standing committee of National People's Congress, said water conservancy is the lifeline of China's agriculture and an important foundation for the country's economic and social development. He said per capita of water resources of the Chinese people is lower than that of the world's average. Moreover, the allocation of irrigation resources is quite unbalanced in terms of time and geography. He said the Chinese government pays close attention to the development and effective utilization of water resources, and building dams and other facilities is very important in the process. China has, he said, built more than 80,000 reservoirs since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, which have been playing an important role in promoting economic growth and dealing with flood damage. In the course of developing its western regions, China has initiated a project that will transmit power from the west to the east. Li said it is essential to speed up infrastructure construction in the areas of water conservancy and hydropower, especially those on the main branches of the Yangtze river, Yellow river and other main rivers. It is of great significance to improve the allocation of irrigation and hydropower resources in western regions as well as promote sustained social and economic development there, he said. Li said China has attached great importance to ecological balance and the protection of water resources while developing the economy, in order to have a harmonious co-existence between human beings and nature. He said the primary aim of building the Three Gorges Project is to control and mitigate flood damage, generate power, and use it for navigation, irrigation and other purposes. The whole project involves about 20 billion U.S. dollars with 55 percent of the total to be used in project construction and the rest in migration and environmental protection. China has taken steps to maintain an ecological environment along the Yangtze river, which involves planting trees and grass as well as preventing the cultivation of land on the upper sections of the river, while mapping out regulations to protect geologic and water resources, Li said. He said China has combined the development and use of water conservancy with sustained development in construction of the Three Gorges Project. Li said the convening of the congress in Beijing provided a good opportunity for Chinese and foreign experts to learn from each other. China, as a developing country, is willing to learn more from its foreign counterparts in related areas. The four-day congress, which ended in Beijing on Friday, focused on a number of key issues concerning the construction of dams. The CICLD was founded in 1928 and now has 81 member countries. China joined the organization in 1974. |
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