China has made great breakthrough in water conservancy construction during the "Ninth Five Year Plan" period. The central government invested nearly 100 billion yuan in infrastructure construction for water conservancy projects in 1998, 1999 and 2000, an annual increase of three to four folds over the normal times.

During the "Ninth Five Year Plan" period, China began to construct 30,000-km protecting embankment with 16,000-km of sectional embankment completed to the standard, of which the first and second tiered embankments along mainstreams and tributaries of major rivers occupied over 10,000 km. A total of 6,000 km sea dykes was built and 236 cities across the country reached the national standard for flood control, a rise of 37 percent as against the 31 percent in the early days of the "Ninth Five Year Plan" period. 25 water control projects were put into operation, an increased capacity of six billion cubic meters for flood control, and over 80 large and medium-sized reservoirs got consolidated with a capacity of 5.8 billion cubic meters being restored for the prevention of floods

(People's Daily 01/17/01)