A full inspection of three water supply companies located in the west of Guangzhou was conducted on August 13th, by a team led by Li Qing - Director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Guangdong Province - and composed of officials from the Environmental Protection Bureau of Guangdong Province and the Department of Supervision of Guangdong Province. As a result of the inspection, the quality of water that was up to the standard, after achieving an increase of 48.83% in 2007 over in 2004, has increased by 9.36% during the first seven months of 2008, compared with the same period last year.

As for such improvement, Su Zequn, Member of the Standing Committee of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC and the Deputy Executive Mayor of Guangzhou, said that great importance has and would always be attached to the protection of water sources in western Guangzhou, improving the quality of the drinking water there.

Su introduced that such an achievement should be attributed to strict daily management, strengthening supervision, effective pollution control and the development of sewage disposal systems. As a result, 38 of the 78 enterprises around the water source in western Guangzhou have been either closed or removed, 2 of them have been reorganized and another 38 are under reorganization. Also, the municipal government planned to supply over 20 riverlets running through north of Guangzhou with one million cubic meters of water a day from the Xijiang River. The project was scheduled for completion before the 16th Asian Games that are to be held in Guangzhou in 2010. With the completion of this project, the water quality was sure to be improved considerably.

Editor: Yan