The China Development Bank (CDB) said on Sunday that it would provide more loans during the 2006-10 period to finance the country's efforts to protect the environment.

The CDB, one of the three Chinese policy banks, provided loans of 118.4 billion yuan (US$15.2 billion) for environmental protection between 2001 and 2005.

The figure represented 14.1 percent of China's total investment in environmental protection in the period.

By the end of 2006, the CDB had given loans worth 201.8 billion yuan to environmental protection projects across the country, including east China's Taihu Lake, the country's third largest freshwater lake, Suzhou River, Shanghai's mother river, and south China's tourist city of Guilin.

The bank made an emergency loan worth 150 million yuan to help the Chinese government handle the Songhua River pollution disaster in 2005, which disrupted water supplies to millions of people in northeast China.

(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2007)