China plans to introduce further world advanced water technologies to improve flood controls and water supplies.

Gao Bo, director of the international cooperation, science and technology department at the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR), pledged the move would also rehabilitate water-related ecosystems.

He told the opening ceremony of the Promotion Conference on International Advanced Water Technology in Beijing that the sustainable use of water resources was of vital importance in China.

The country is plagued by scarce water supplies, frequent floods and droughts, serious water pollution and soil erosion, he said.

"Such promotion (of technologies) has helped China keep in line with the world's water sector," he told the conference.

He said hundreds of imported technologies had already been used to good effect in China.

During the two-day event, more than 50 enterprises from 15 countries and regions will showcase their latest technologies and try to apply them in China.

They include computer-based systems that monitor water treatment, pollution and irrigation.

The central government has budgeted 50 million yuan (US$6.2 million) this year for the country's water sector, said Gao.

It will be used to buy high-tech equipment, particularly water-saving and pollution control systems.

During the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-05), the MWR injected about US$40 million of special funds to introduce about 600 technologies from more than 20 foreign countries into China's water sector.

More than half of them had been adopted by key water projects in the country by the end of last year.

They have played a key role in improving geological prospecting for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, designed for improving China's uneven distribution of water resources, monitoring water quality in key sections of the Yellow River, one of the country's worst polluted major water systems, and monitoring the soil erosion in the Loess Plateau, one of the world's worst eroded areas.

(China Daily April 28, 2006)