Nearly 480,000 local residents living in the Three Gorges Reservoir areas will be relocated in the coming six years.

During the period, a total of 556 businesses and factories will also be shifted to make way for the world's biggest hydropower project on the Yangtze River. The announcement was made by an official from the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee under the State Council, Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

The successful relocation of residents during the construction of the reservoir on the Yangtze River will make it possible to begin generating electricity in June.

By the end of last year, the relocation of people to make way for building work on the second phase of China's Three Gorges Power Project had been completed. A total of 645,200 people were moved to new homes, according to the official, who was not identified in the Xinhua report.

Three Gorges project has involved the world's biggest relocation. A total of 1.13 million residents who mainly lived in Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality were moved.

The mammoth task began in 1992 and by the end of last year, over 60 percent of those targeted for relocation in Hubei and Chongqing had been moved from the reservoir area.

The successful completion of the relocation work is expected to boost economic development and improve the environment in the reservoir areas, said the official.

By the end of last year, a total of 1,043 firms with poor economic performance had been closed.

For years natural disasters in the region, such as landslides, have threatened the lives of local people. Relocation will, experts predict, have a favorable impact on the environment and lessen the likelihood of such disasters, said the official.

Both central and local governments have agreed to allocate 4 billion yuan (US$484 million) to improve the environment and to cope with any future natural disasters in the region.

In another development, the Ministry of Water Resources announced that the Chinese Government plans to invest a total of 39.2 billion yuan (US$4.7 billion) over the next seven years, in a bid to clean up the mighty Yangtze River.

Ministry officials said recently that their efforts will concentrate on water pollution control in the Three Gorges Reservoir areas, as well as in the upper reaches of the Yangtze.

Currently the river water, although still able to meet the required standard for drinking, has in recent years suffered considerably from various pollutants.

Experts warned that soon after the Three Gorges Reservoir begins to store water, the rapid increase of various pollutants will pose a great challenge to the reservoir environment, as the self-cleaning capacity will be much weakened because of the slower flow of the water.

Based on careful research over the past 10 years, experts and officials have developed a program of water pollution prevention and control for the upper reaches of the Yangtze.

The program provides comprehensive solutions for pollution control in the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan on the upper reaches of the river and for Chongqing Municipality and Hubei Province, located in the reservoir areas.

By 2009, all cities and towns will have their own rubbish disposal facilities, which will ensure that 100 percent of waste can be centrally disposed of, said Zhang Yong, deputy director of Chongqing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

(China Daily February 8, 2003)