The conference also demanded help for local residents, affected by the worst flooding this year since 1954, to speed up in resuming production and rebuilding of their homes.

Dozens of water control projects have been constructed over the 50 past years and the gradually-worsening environment has been restrained, according to the conference.

And the efforts made by the central and local governments laid a good foundation for the improvement of the people's lives, social stability and economic development.

However, it was noted there is still a long way to go to better contain the river.

The conference demanded building of top-quality flood control projects by taking comprehensive measures and called for strict administration of the quality of the projects, improvement of the administrative system on irrigation works and supervision on usage of various funds.

The Huaihe River is notorious for its frequent floods with 300 disastrous floods recorded over the past five centuries, endangering the lives of local people in the river valley. The area now produces 18 percent of the country's food grain and 15 percent of coal.

The 1,000-km Huaihe River flows through four central and eastern Chinese provinces, namely Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu, and is located exactly between the country's two longest rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers.

(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2003)