U.S. Water News Online
BEIJING -- Facing severe shortages, Beijing authorities plan to veto new water-guzzling businesses and reward companies that use water-saving technology, the state media has reported.
The plan will block approval of new businesses in the textile, leather, metal smelting and chemical industries, the newspaper China Daily reported.
Makers of beverages, plastics and pharmaceuticals must meet water conservation restrictions to gain approval, said the newspaper, citing a notice by the Beijing Development and Reform Commission.
``Besides banning and limiting water-consuming businesses, my commission also worked out a list of 93 kinds of water-saving and water-recycling products,'' Zhang Yanyou, director of the commission's industry division, was quoted as saying.
He said the municipal government set up a special fund to subsidize enterprises engaged in water-saving toilets, sewage treatment and other water-saving technology. Beijing's 3 million flush toilets could save tens of millions of gallons (liters) of water each year if they are converted.
``The market for water-saving devices is very large. ... The amount of water wasted by leaks every year almost equals to the annual output of a waterworks,'' said Zhang Shouquan, a water expert with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, quoted by China Daily.
Beijing sits on a dry plateau in northern China that is prone to drought. The central government is in the early stages of a project that is meant to move huge amounts of water from China's south to irrigate parched areas of the densely populated north.
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