A major water-resources project for Beijing will be completed by the end of this year, according to the State Council. The project will supplement the Olympic host city's water resources next year.

Belonging to the central route of China's gigantic south-to-north water diversion scheme, the project links Shijiazhuang City in north China's Hebei Province with Beijing to divert water from south to the country's capital.

Construction began on the central route of the 1,277-km-long project in 2003. It aims to divert water from Danjiangkou Reservoir in central China's Hubei Province to northern China, including Beijing and Tianjin Municipalities.

China is among the 13 countries with the lowest water supplies per capita in the world. Among the country's 668 cities, more than 400 are short of water, and shortages are severe in more than 100 cities.

The municipal government has earmarked 100 million yuan to prevent water pollution and conserve water in Zhangjiakou and Chengde, two cities in Hebei Province whose water feeds two major Beijing drinking water sources, the Miyun and Guanting reservoirs.

Beijing will divert up to 400 million cubic meters of water a year from Hebei to safeguard supplies for the Olympics, a top water official said in May.

The water from Hebei, equivalent to more than 10 percent of Beijing's 2006 consumption of 3.43 billion cubic meters, would be ready to be pumped from four of Hebei's reservoirs by April 2008, said Bi Xiaojun, deputy head of the Beijing Water Authority.

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2007)