Officials said they were ready to launch a long-term project to deal with the lack of clean water, which is threatening the health of millions in the Chinese countryside.

Zhai Haohui, vice-minister of water resources, was cited by China Daily as saying that by 2010 the plan was to cut down the number of residents without access to clean drinking water by one third.

"By the end of 2020, we are going to reach the goal of basically providing safe drinking water for all rural people," he said.

The deadline is part of the government's millennium goals declared to the United Nations.

"This problem must be tackled as more than 300 million rural residents throughout China still lack clean drinking water," said Zhai.

"In some areas, many farmers have to go several kilometres away to fetch drinking water, while some have to drink water with high fluorine or arsenic content or salty water that endangers their health."

Unsafe drinking water is connected to 80 percent of all diseases and deaths in developing countries, ministry experts say. In China, more than 50 diseases are the direct result of unclean drinking water.

How China manages to achieve its goal remains to be seen.

According to earlier state media reports, China's water supply is under greater pressure than ever, and the situation would go on deteriorating until 2030, when the population peaks at 1.6 billion.

The problem is that China is much more wasteful in its use of water than most other countries, even though it has far fewer resources than the world average, according to the reports.

Zhai admitted that the government had yet to work out details of the plan, but said he was confident a blueprint would be possible to meet the target.

Over the past five years, more than 14 million rural families throughout 27 provinces have gained access to drinking water with more than 800,000 new water processing facilities going into operation, the China Daily said.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.