Water technologies on tap at conference

Recent years have seen China import more than 300 advanced water technologies from abroad.

"They have played an increasing role in ensuring that China's water conservancy is sustainable and pushing forward the industry's modernization," Hu Siyi, vice-minister of water resources, said on Friday at the opening ceremony of the 9th Promotion Conference on International Advanced Water Technology in Beijing.

Over the next 10 years, China has decided to invest 4 trillion yuan ($634.8 billion) on water conservation projects and has plans to double the average amount spent on the industry every year.

To ensure there is enough money for such projects, the government will use 10 percent of its profits from local land transactions for farmland irrigation, the weakest part of the country's water industry, experts said.

With such a hefty investment in the water industry, authorities will continue to use various means of lending support to the country's capacity for technology innovation in the field in the coming years, Hu said.

This year, up to 180 advanced water technologies, both from home and abroad, were introduced at the water technology conference, which was the largest that has been held in China and which more than 1,000 representatives attended.

It was aimed at bringing about exchanges of domestic and international water technologies, sources with the ministry's Science and Technology Promotion Center said.

Among the advanced water technologies introduced by the Ministry of Water Resources, over 60 percent were recommended by the center through the promotion conference it sponsored.

The center has promoted new technology since 2003 and held the conference in China every April ever since then. More than 500 enterprises from more than 30 countries and regions participated in the previous conferences, when about 800 various sorts of technology and products were put on display.

Most of the technologies have been applied to disaster mitigation, the improvement, protection and management of water resources, the provision of safe drinking water to rural residents and irrigation projects that use relatively little water.