Around 6.5 million more people will have access to clean drinking water in northwest China's Shaanxi Province within the next five years, local officials said on Monday.

The rural population of 2.96 million in particular will benefit from government funds of over one billion yuan (about US$129 million), said Tan Cewu, director of the provincial Bureau of Water Resources.

An additional 1.5 million rural people will be provided with clean drinking water in 2007, Tan said.

In the last five years, the provincial government has built 27,000 water provision projects for 14.7 million rural people, Tan said.

The Chinese government plans to invest 6.4 billion yuan (about US$825 million) annually for water provision projects which will benefit 160 million people.

According to the latest statistics from 2004, China had 323 million rural population drinking unclean water, 34 percent of the total rural population.

(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2007)