China ups investment in water management to over $27b in Q1

Over 198.8 billion yuan ($27.2 billion) worth of investment was made for building water resources management facilities across China in the first quarter this year, up by 2.9 percent year-on-year, said Chen Min, vice-minister of water resources.

In a news conference on Thursday, he also revealed that these investment was made in 21,600 projects, almost 28 percent of which were launched this year.

"The investment has played a consistent role in promoting employment," he stressed.

He said that 660,000 individuals are employed in those water resources management facilities under construction, with 543,000 of them from rural areas.

In total, these workers have received a collective payment of nearly 6.8 billion in wages, he added.

Chen said that the ministry has steered local governments toward leveraging local government special bonds and national preferential financial policies for water resources management, aiming to facilitate the involvement of social capital in water resources management projects.

From January to March, the ministry managed to collect almost 37.3 billion yuan of social capital for building water resources management projects, increasing by 33.2 percent from last year, he said.