Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region is to invest 800 million yuan (US$96,77 million) in building and completing 143 water conservancy and drinking water projects this year.
About 400 million will be used for building 93 new projects and the remaining half for projects started in previous years.
Preparations for the early stages of 70 of 100 designated small hydro-electric power projects for the 2001-2005 period will be completed within the year.
Due to the arid climate and poor water supply system, a total of 550,000 people in rural and pastoral areas in Tibet have difficulty in getting clean drinking water.
The local government spent 90 million yuan on building water supply facilities over the past three years. By the end of last year, the regional government had succeeded in providing clean drinking water to 75,000 rural residents and 1.1 million head of livestock.
Construction of all drinking water projects will be completed by the end of this year.
(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2002)
