The Chinese government is striving to help about 24 million rural residents out of a water shortage in the next five years.
The country still has around 50 million people who are facing water shortage, most of whom are living in drought-stricken rural areas, according to information from the Ministry of Water Resources released at a recent conference held in north China’s Shanxi Province.
The government is now managing a project to curb water-deficiency concerning some 1,400 counties in 21 provinces mainly in the western part of the country.
China’s water per capita are about 2,400 cubic meters, making up 25 percent of the world’s average. The United Nations has listed China among the 13 water-shortage nations in the world.
With a growing population and rapid economic development, China is facing a water shortage that threatens to bottleneck its overall development. The country will even experience its most serious water shortage after 2010, as some experts warned.
(People’s Daily 04/19/2001)
