The country will face serious challenges in managing the Three Gorges dam project after work on it ends next year, the official in charge of the project has said.

Wang Xiaofeng, director of the office of the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee, said the challenges involved the "arduous task" of improving conditions for the 1.1 million people who have been relocated for the project, protecting the environment and controlling geological disasters around the dam.

"All the tasks are long-term ones that will exist after the project is finished in 2009," he said.

He also said he is likely to be the last director of the office of the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee, which could be dissolved after the work on the dam is finished.

"I strongly feel I have the responsibility and duty of determining what we should do to meet these post-project challenges," he said.

Wang made these remarks on the sidelines of the annual session of the 11th National Committee of the CPPCC, the top political advisory body.

Work on the dam, which holds 39 billion cu m of water, started in 1994, with the goals of taming the periodic floods on the Yangtze and generating clean energy.

It is hoped the 180-billion-yuan project will reduce the threat of floods on the Yangtze from once every 10 years to once every 100 years.

Wang said improving the lives of the 1.1 million people displaced by the dam will be a pressing mission.

"The final success of the project will depend on, in some sense, whether we can help these resettled people lead comfortable lives," he said.