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China Uses Japanese Loan to Treat Flood-Prone Dongting
Four cities in the plain area of Dongting Lake, China's second largest fresh water lake, have got 24 billion Japanese yen of loans from the Japan Bank of International Cooperation to improve their anti-flood ability.
The lake area is one of China's most important grain production bases. The low-lying cities in central China's Hunan Province, however, is prone to floods every summer.
So far, embankments protecting the cities from flooding can only withstand floods, which are seen every four to 20 years.
With the injection of new funding, the cities will be installed with anti-flood facilities able to defend against flooding, which are seen every 100 to 200 years in Changsha, the provincial capital, and 50 to 100 years in Changde, Yueyang and Yiyang.
The loan contract signed in March 2000 has set the annual interest rate at 0.7 percent with 40 years of maturity.
Some 5.28 million residents living in a combined area of 8.9 million square kilometers in these cities will benefit from the project, which is expected to produce some results next year.(100 Japanese yen = 6.9 yuan; 1 US dollar = 119 yen )
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