It is "a task of top priority" to build a water-saving society since more than 400 out of over 600 Chinese cities suffer water shortage, China Legal Daily reports.

Statistics show that water crisis or severe shortage of water supply occurred in more than 130 Chinese cities in 2003. The per-capita share of water resource in China is less than one third of the world's average and that in north China is less than one eighth of the world's average.

China must take energetic efforts to build a "water-saving" society as stipulated in the Water Law of the People's Republic China, change the old practice of promoting water saving through administrative means and accelerate the reform of water use system, the paper quotes experts as saying.

(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2005)