Huge Beijing canal project ‘to be completed this year’

Work on the Beijing-Shijiazhuang canal, a 300-kilometre project intended to boost the Chinese capital's scarce water supplies for the 2008 Olympics, will be "basically completed" by the end of the year, reports said on Monday.
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The canal, linking Shijiazhuang in neighbouring Hebei province to Beijing, would divert 300-500 million cubic metres of water from four Hebei reservoirs next year, the Beijing News said, citing project officials.

The 17.4 billion yuan (US$2.35 billion) aqueduct was needed to guarantee supplies to the drought-stricken capital where reservoirs had dried up and water tables sunk dramatically, the report said.

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