They came from Yunyang County of Chongqing Municipality, and are the first group of people who are leaving the construction area to resettle in the Chongming Island of Shanghai and 10 other provinces in the country.

Shanghai has pledged full support to help resettle people living in the area of the Three Gorges project, a gigantic water-conservancy project first approved by the National People’s Congress in 1992.

According to a related plan, a total of 70,000 rural people will leave five counties in Chongqing to resettle in Shanghai and 10 provinces including Zhejiang and Guangdong in three years.

This year these places will each accept over 600 people from the Three Gorges project construction area, and all the people are expected to reach their new homes before September 1, so that they can start farming in time and their children can go to school when the autumn semester starts.

The 639 people from Chongqing's Yunyang County will build their homes on the Chongming Island, China’s third largest of its kind, Shanghai. Today, Chongqing Municipality and Yunyang County sent out officials and a medical team to accompany them.

Relocation of residents living in dam areas is an important aspect of the smooth construction of the gigantic Three Gorges power project, which is a key project in China's modernization drive.

Shanghai has made preparations to welcome the new residents, according to the Chongqing Resettlement Bureau. Shanghai has built spacious and well-designed houses for the new comers, and plans to grant 0.067 hectare of farmland to each of them. Shanghai will also reduce or exempt the new residents' agriculture taxes and have their children's tuition reduced or exempted.

By the end of 1998, 160,000 residents, about 19 percent of the current 840,000 residents expected to be resettled, had been moved from the reservoir area. As many as 550,000 people are expected to be relocated during 1998-2003, with 110,000 residents resettled annually. By the time the program ends in 2009, more than 1.3 million residents are expected to have been moved from the greater Three Gorges Reservoir region, including residents from the lake area, Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality.

China will inject about 40 billion yuan into resettling 1.13 million people affected by the Three Gorges Project which will dam the Yangtze River in an area bordering Hubei Province, central China, and Chongqing Municipality.

In the year 2003, the Three Gorges projects' first batch of units will generate electricity and the project will enter its second phase. At the same time, the development of the west should facilitate the construction of the Three Gorges project and the development of the Three Gorges region.

To help ensure the relocated residents' means of living and production, more than 15 million square meters of housing floor space is planned, along with the construction of 684 kilometers of roads, about 2,260 kilometers of power transmission lines and 3,312 kilometers of telecommunications lines.

(China Daily)