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Cities raise water price
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-12-25 09:35 More than half of Chinese
cities raised their water prices this year, aiming to fight the country's severe
water shortage by raising citizen's water-saving awareness.
The most
outstanding example was Beijing. In August, the capital raised its water price
from 2.9 yuan per ton to 3.7 yuan per ton.
It was the ninth water price
hike for the city in the past 14 years, making Beijing's water most expensive in
the country.
Although Beijing had a rainy summer this year, the water
level of the city's major reservoir, Miyun Reservoir, did not rise at all.
The city transferred more than 100 million cubic meters of water from
the neighboring provinces of Shanxi and Hebei, both of which are also
parched.
"Water shortage and water pollution will be major challenges for
the country to realize its goal of building up an affluent society in 20 years,"
said Wang Shucheng, Minister of Water Resources, at an ongoing national water
resources management meeting taking place in the capital.
The latest
statistics from the Ministry of Water Resources showed that China's per capita
water volume was only 2,200 cubic meters, one quarter of the world's average.
Two-thirds of the country's more than 600 cities suffered water
shortages, and China has become one of the 13 most water-lacking countries in
the world. Water shortages cause up to 300 billion yuan (US$36.2 billion) in
economic losses in China every year.
Besides Beijing, many provinces and
autonomous regions around the country, including Shandong, Jiangsu, Shaanxi,
Hunan, Yunnan, Hubei and Guangxi, are adjusting or have already raised their
water prices in the year 2004.
China's average urban per capita water
price stands at 2 yuan per ton nowadays.
"Such low water prices cannot
reflect the country's severe water shortage and will definitely be raised
remarkably in future," said Wang Xiuqing, professor at China Agriculture
University.
"Will the last drop of water on Earth be the tear of a human
being?" The question was recently written on the advertisement billboards across
the country in a bid to remind citizens of the country's severe water
shortage.
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