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China pushes international co-op in water sectors

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-03-20 19:16

Istanbul – China kicked off a series of efforts to push ahead international co-operation with the Asia-Pacific region, particularly its neighbors in water sectors on Friday in the World Water Forum.

Heading a delegation of China for the forum's Asian-Pacific Day, Chen Lei, minister of water resources, called for Asian countries to join hands with one another in the water sector for a sustainable development in the years to come.

As one of the world's areas with prospective vitality of growth, the Asia-Pacific region is facing up with some common challenges of how to reduce damage and casualties from water-related disasters and boost sustainable use of water resources, he said.

Up to 61 percent of the world population live in the region where only one-third of the world total water resources are available for habitants because of the population growth, shrinking per capita water share, poor water sanitation, weak management and inadequate financing in water sectors.

As a result, about 560 million rural people in Asia have no access to safe drinking water each year with deluges claiming 600,000 people's lives a year from 1980 to 2006 or 80 percent of the world total.

To tackle water problems, China has made some key achievements in water sectors including sustaining an annual economic growth of nearly 10 percent in the 30 consecutive years with only one percent of its water supply increased during the period.

"Over the past three decades, we increased our grain output by nearly 50 percent by keeping an nil growth of water supply for irrigation, which enables China to feed 21 percent of the world population with only 6 percent of its total fresh water resources," Chen said.

By 2013, the country will secure safe drinking water for all rural residents, repair dangerous reservoirs, and improve irrigation efficiency and update key irrigation districts for major breadbaskets.

China is expected to get huge interest from overseas participants of the forum, the world's largest water event convening more than 20,000 activists, entrepreneurs, officials and business executives to promote ideas about conserving, managing and supplying water since Monday, observers said.

Delivering a keynote speech to the sub-forum of water storage facilities co-hosted by International Commission of Large Dams and China's top academy of water and hydropower research, he said, China did build a large number of projects to control flood, regulate its unevenly distributed water resources and increase hydropower generation including the Three Gorges project and the South-to-North Water Diversion project.

However, he made it clear that, during such exploitation, authorities have paid much attention to the protection of ecosystems and taken the rights of dislocated people into full consideration.