Yesterday the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors approved
a loan of US$96 million to the People's Republic of China to help
finance the Second Guangdong Pearl River Delta Urban Environment
Project. The project will help reduce water pollution in the Pearl
River system in Guangdong Province through a package of key
initiatives, including wastewater treatment and sludge disposal,
industrial pollution control and water quality monitoring, sediment
removal from waterways, and flood protection and river embankment
improvements.?
The Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in China's southern Guangdong
Province is among the fastest growing regions in China, averaging
nearly 14 percent per annum in recent years, mostly due to large
inflows of foreign direct investment in manufacturing. Many parts
of the PRD are largely devoted to export processing. However, the
high economic growth in the PRD has come at a heavy environmental
cost. Lack of proper treatment of industrial and domestic
wastewater which is discharged into the river systems has led to
serious deterioration in river water quality in the PDR region, and
poses a serious threat to drinking water sources, including the
drinking water supply to Hong Kong. It also renders the river
system unsuitable for irrigation, aquaculture, and potential
recreational uses.?
To address the problem, Guangdong provincial government
announced a major plan to clean-up the PRD rivers in 2002. It is an
eight-year campaign which will invest more than US$5 billion in the
construction of wastewater treatment systems in cities and towns in
the PRD region.?
"The World Bank is supporting this ambitious plan through a
series of environmental initiatives in the Pearl River Delta
region," said World Bank Urban Sector Coordinator and project
leader Tom Zearley. "Our first PRD urban environment project was
approved in 2004 and focused on financing wastewater treatment
facilities and other investments in the provincial capital of
Guangzhou, which is the biggest single source of pollution. This
new project will include two additional PRD cities of Foshan and
Jiangmen, which together generate about 15 percent of the pollution
going into the PRD rivers. Through implementation of the project,
we hope to reduce domestic source pollution entering the Pearl
River system from the two cities, and thus deepen and extend the
Guangdong provincial government's efforts to clean-up the PRD
rivers."
In Foshan, the project will finance expansion of a wastewater
treatment plant, construction of a centralized sludge treatment and
disposal facility, improvements to river embankment for flood
protection, and establishment of a water environment management
information system and water quality monitoring facilities. It will
also support staff training and a study of environment cost for GDP
growth and "green" economic planning.
In Jiangmen, the project will help improve wastewater management
through expansion of a wastewater treatment plant, construction of
interceptors, secondary sewers, pumping stations, and sludge
treatment and disposal facilities, and improvements in water
quality monitoring system. The project will also provide technical
assistance to enhance operational and business management
capacities of the new Jiangmen Biyuan Wastewater Company.
The total project cost is US$188 million, and Bank finances
US$96 million.
(China.org.cn March 22, 2007)
