Asian Development Bank (ADB) will offer a loan of US$80 million to help in a project to reduce pollution in the Haihe River Basin in China's Shandong Province, an ADB report said Monday.

The project, under China's National Haihe River Basin Pollution Prevention and Control Plan, will employ an integrated approach to reduce pollutants discharged into the basin, the report said.

The project includes four sites for wastewater treatment and three for solid waste management. In the wake of local paper and pulp industry producing water contaminants, the project includes two paper mill waste recovery subprojects, the ADB added.

Overall, the project includes a total of nine subprojects to be carried out in four secondary cities and counties, namely Binzhou, Dezhou, Jinan and Liaocheng, it said.

The ADB's 25-year loan will cover about half of the total project cost, and the local finance bureaus and implementing agencies will cover the balance, the report said.

The Shandong Provincial Government is the executing agency for the project, which is due for completion around December 2011.

The Haihe River Basin is one of China's most important industrial regions and home to about 117 million people. The basin has been identified as one of three regions in China with the highest priority for improving water quality, according to the report.

(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2006)