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State-owned Water-Use Rights Allowed to Be Traded
Water-use rights, which used to be solely owned by the State, are allowed to be sold and purchased, said vice Minister of Water Resources Jing Zhengshu Monday.
Jing made the statement at a Sino-Japan seminar on water resources that opened here Monday, adding that the proprietary rights to water resources will still be in the State's hands.
Private companies or individuals may share the water-use rights with State-owned counterparts, probably in the form of holding equities, Jing said.
In the past water resources were not considered a kind of commodity that can be traded, as China managed water resources and developed water supply completely as the public welfare work rather than profitable businesses, said Hu Angang, an economist with the Tsinghua University.
The traditional water management policy is considered a major cause of the huge amount water waste prevailing in many parts of the country, he added.
The country has taken the first step to reform its management approach to water resources but it is still far from establishing a viable system, the vice Minister said.
"The Sino-Japan seminar will help China learn more advanced management methods for water resources," he said. "The two countries will see great potential for cooperation in this field."
The seminar is part of a cooperation project promoted by the Ministry of Water Resources and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which started in July last year.
The five-year project plans to train 2,000 Chinese officials in the management of water resources.
The first water-use rights trading case happened in eastern China's Zhejiang Province in February this year. The municipal government of Yiwu City bought the permanent use rights for 50 million cubic meters of water from a neighbor city for 200 million yuan.
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