Kinmen-Fujian water pipeline nears fruition

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/21
By: Milly Lin and Ted Chen

Taipei, May 21 (CNA) A two-decade plan to supply Kinmen with water from Jinjiang City in China’s Fujian province may finally come to fruition following a high-level meeting between heads of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC, 陸委會) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO, 國台辦) slated to take place on May 23.

Taiwan’s Water Resources Agency said that consensus on building the water pipeline have been reached, and that the final details of the agreement may be ironed out in an upcoming meeting between MAC chief Hsia Li-yan (夏立言) and his counterpart TAO chief Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) in Kinmen this weekend, paving the way for the inking of an contract to begin constructions.

The Executive Yuan in 2014 devised a plan for Kinmen to import water from Fujian by building a 16.9 km pipeline at a cost of NT$1.35 billion (US$44 million) . The project is expected to take one and a half years to be completed and bring in 150,000 tonnes of water annually, with the amount to be expanded to 340,000 tonnes eventually.     [FULL  STORY]