China will invest 90 billion yuan ($13.2 billion) to construct a sewage treatment system to keep the drinking water safe.
Wu Xiaoqing, the vice minister of China's Ministry of Environmental Protection made the statement at the "Fourth international seminar on Chinese city and town water issue" on Sunday.
Wu said water pollution control had greatly improved in China over the past 30 years. But 270 million people in rural areas had no access to safe drinking water yet.
Qian Zhengying, a hydrologist, made a keynote speech on "A change on China's water strategy" which indicated China's water management departments had to change from "tapping water resource" to being able to "manage water resource".
"The China's water industry should make more efforts in researching on water saving and recycle. It will help cut a huge bulk of China's industrial water supply," she added.
