As learned from the Ministry of Water Resources the construction of water conservancy works has made gratifying progress. By the end of last year China has repaired 260,000 works damaged by water, built 910,000 small-scale works including reservoirs and water cellars etc. Water reserve capacity has increased by 1.16 billion cubic meters while an irrigation area of 64 million mu (10.56 million acres) has been added or otherwise upgraded. All this has paved the way for grain output increase.

According to the Plan For Reinforcing Construction of Irrigation Areas and Ensuring Security of Grain Production that has been completed China will, in the next 8 years, put 30 billion yuan into large-scale irrigation areas, particularly areas of grain production. China will strive to open a group of large-scale irrigation areas.

Currently work on agricultural irrigation water use for the Spring season has begun in succession. To ensure the spring agricultural production and realize harvest of the summer grains the Ministry of Water Resources has released the Circular on Reinforcing Management over Spring Irrigation Water Use and Ensuring Harvest of Summer Grains. The Circular requires water administration departments at various levels to mobilize early, deploy early and arrange early, to use water scientifically, efficiently and systematically and to allocate water resources reasonably.

By People's Daily Online