Central China's Hunan Province has planned to invest 9.6 billion yuan (some US$1.15 billion) to set up 20 sewage treatment plants in the three years to come, in a bid to increase its capability to deal with waste water.

 Since 1995, Hunan has built eight sewage treatment plants at cost of 830 million yuan (US$10 million) in total, and is thus ranked in the 26th place nationwide in terms of sewage-disposing ability, which is 13 percent weaker than the national average level.

The new plants are expected to increase the province's daily sewage-disposing capacity to 1.29 million tons at the end of this year from 767,000 tons in 2003, and to 2.2 million tons by the end of 2006. Then, about 60 percent of its sewage will be treated.

(Xinhua News Agency May 14, 2004)