WATER-CONTROL PROJECTS

China Youth Daily

June 14, 2011

Continuous rainfall in June has alleviated lingering drought in central and south China. However, the heavy rain also caused disaster in the form of floods. A lack of water-control projects in rural areas worsened the disaster.

Water control projects in rural areas not only have the function of providing agricultural irrigation, water used in aquaculture and domestically-used water, but also prevent floods and alleviate drought. These projects are non-profitable and have to be built by the government. If the government fails to build them, disasters like flooding and drought will not be natural, but man-made.

Admittedly, investment by the government is not sufficient in constructing these projects. So private investments should also be encouraged along with involvement from farmers. 

MORE HOUSES

Guangzhou Daily

June 11, 2011

The minister of housing and urban-rural development said on June 9 that the local governments should start building affordable housing by the end of November this year. However, insiders say, currently, the construction of 70 percent of the affordable housing has not yet begun.  It is obvious that the construction should be speeded up.

Construction speed should be based on sufficient financial support and sound preliminary planning. It will cost 1.3 trillion yuan ($200 billion) to realize this year's goal of building 10 million affordable apartments. Up to now, besides the 500 billion yuan ($77 billion) subsidized by governments at all levels, another 800 billion yuan ($123 billion) has to be raised from the society. Therefore, before speeding up the construction, the problem of lacking finance should first be solved in case it leads to a potential safety hazard in the process of construction.