China said on Wednesday that it has spent nearly 24 billion yuan (about US$3.5 billion) in the past two years to give more than 8 percent of its 1.3 billion people safe drinking water.

Environmental Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian said in a report to a plenary session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee that more than 109 million rural people benefited from the water investment since 2006.

Overall water quality last year was almost the same as in 2006, he said, adding that greater efforts were made to curb pollution in major streams.

The urban sewage treatment rate reached 63 per cent in 2007, an11 percentage-point rise from 2005, he said.

The central government has built farm biogas projects and ramped up efforts to protect wetlands, build more shelter belts and promote scientific fertilizer distribution in the countryside.

The country has also clamped down on sources of pollution, he said.

More than 1.6 million law enforcement officials investigated more than 700,000 enterprises nationwide, of which more than 15,000 were punished for polluting the environment, he said.

Zhou's report is open for debate during the meeting, which started on Monday.

Three other cabinet reports were also submitted for discussion: a report on the implementation of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) on economic and social development, a report on commodity prices and another report on the consequences of the international financial crisis on the Chinese economy.

China has in recent years paid increasing attention to environmental problems as it seeks to balance high economic growth with a rational use of natural resources and reduce pollution.

(Xinhua News Agency December 24, 2008)