The government of Guilin City, best known for its picturesque mountains and rivers, has spent 360 million yuan (US$43 million) cleaning up the Lijiang River, one of China's most beautiful rivers, over the past 20 years.

Since the early 80s, Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has redoubled efforts to control the pollution of the Lijiang River by shutting down 27 polluting factories.

The city government has promulgated regulations to ban sand extraction, sewage discharge from pleasure boats and raising fish in cages in the river.

So far, these pollution control measures have proved to be effective in controlling pollution caused by industrial production, daily consumption and tourism service, and eliminating by and large pollution along the river caused by heavy metals and poisonous substances. The quality of the river water has met Chinese government standards.

The city is using a US$34.8 million loan from the World Bank for nine pollution control projects to control pollution, supply water and conserve water and soil around the Lijiang River.

(People’s Daily 12/20/2000)