China to spend 430b yuan fighting water pollution

This photo taken on Nov 27, 2014 shows a couple walking alongside a canal in Beijing. Beijing has a network of canals which provide wat er for the city's parks and lakes. (AFP PHOTO/Greg BAKER)

BEIJING - China will spend 430 billion yuan (US$64.6 billion) on about 4,800 projects to improve the quality of its scarce water resources, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced Monday.

The funds will go on protecting the environment of rivers and lakes with good water quality; protection of drinking water sources; pollution prevention and control in major basins; and groundwater protection.

According to the ministry, the first batch of projects includes the Liujiaxia Reservoir in Gansu province and Sanxian Lake in Hunan province.

A water pollution prevention plan published in April 2015, promised to ban polluting paper mills, oil refineries, pesticide producers and other industrial plants by the end of 2016.