Beijing plans to invite overseas investment for five sewage treatment plants next month, the first time the government monopolized sector is to open to the other parts of the world.

 

Zhu Xiangdong, general manager of Beijing Water Corp., a waste water treatment company, said the five plants will have a combined capacity to process 160,000 cubic meters of waste water per day.

 

Details of the waste water projects will be available at an international science and technology exposition slated for Beijing next month, according to him.

 

There are six waste water plants in Beijing, which handle half of the sewage produced in the city everyday.

 

Under the city government's program for the 2008 Olympic Games, six more sewage plants will be built to treat 90 percent of the waste water, and the fund for these projects will mainly be raised by market means.

 

Zhu said the city government has kept investing some 1 billion yuan (US$120 million) in building sewage treatment facilities a year over the last few years.

 

However, to meet the demand to create a good environment for a best ever Olympic Games, the annual investment must be doubled, he said, adding that this will put high pressure on the government if it will continue to monopoly the sector.

 

Zhu's company now operates Beijing's two major waste water plants that process 1.2 million cubic meters of sewage a day, or 85 percent of the city's total at present.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2003)