Around 6.5 million more people will have access to clean drinking
water in northwest China's Shaanxi Province within the next five
years, local officials said on Monday.
The rural population of 2.96 million in particular will benefit
from government funds of over one billion yuan (about US$129
million), said Tan Cewu, director of the provincial Bureau of Water
Resources.
An additional 1.5 million rural people will be provided with
clean drinking water in 2007, Tan said.
In the last five years, the provincial government has built
27,000 water provision projects for 14.7 million rural people, Tan
said.
The Chinese government plans to invest 6.4 billion yuan (about
US$825 million) annually for water provision projects which will
benefit 160 million people.
According to the latest statistics from 2004, China had 323
million rural population drinking unclean water, 34 percent of the
total rural population.
(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2007)
