China's central government Tuesday allocated an emergency fund of 200 million yuan (24.09 million US dollars) to combat flooding.

The fund will be dispensed to 13 flood-affected provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, including Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Guangxi and Chongqing.

Since many places in the country have experienced severe droughts or floods this year, the central government has contributed more than 1 billion yuan for the flood control and drought relief work nationwide, including 756 million yuan for flood control and 245 million yuan for drought relief, according to officials with the Ministry of Finance.

(People's Daily July 16, 2003)