China and EU Join Forces to Clean Major Rivers     

On October 16th, 2007 China and the European Union (EU) launched a joint campaign to purify the country's largest river basins - the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.
    The 5-year program, involving around 200 million euros, will work out a comprehensive plan and policies on pollution control along the Yellow River, and promote the public awareness of reducing industrial pollution and waste discharge and saving irrigation along the middle reaches of the river, particularly in Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi provinces.
    The fund will also be used to finance people living in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Hubei provinces and Chongqing Municipality to plant economic and ecological forests in an effort to improve ecological conservation along the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
   The program will also bring advanced knowledge from Europe on administrating rivers that is expected to upgrade China's river control mechanisms.
   Initiated at the China-EU summit held in Beijing in 2005, the program will be jointly carried out by the Ministry of Water Resources, the State Administration for Environmental Protection (SAEP), the water resources committees of the two rivers, and the EU.