The central government has already boosted investment in the countryside. Last year's 420 billion yuan was a record-high increase of 80 billion yuan from 2006.

And yet, experts have said still more money must go to the rural areas, if the country is to achieve its bold goal announced two weeks ago.

To realize a 10 percent rise in the treatment of sewage and consumer waste, and a similar increase for the livestock and poultry waste utilization rate by 2010 will take much more than words.

With barely 16 months away, the government should also introduce tax and credit incentives to encourage more private enterprises to get involved in the rural environmental protection market, Wang Shaojie, vice chairman of the China Democratic National Construction Association, earlier said.

Additionally, policymakers such as Lu Ming, deputy head of the countryside affairs committee of the National People's Congress, have argued that the major obstacle to rural water management - and rural environment protection as well - is that despite the fact that several ministries and the Department of Environment Protection each allocates funds to individual projects, no single body is directly responsible for the whole.

"There should be one special department to coordinate the issue," Lu says.

(China Daily August 4, 2008)