Insistence on ecological priority and green development is the strategic positioning to promote the development of the Yangtze River economic belt.

General Secretary Xi Jinping, in a forum promoting the development earlier this year emphasized: "Yangtze River ecological restoration should be put in an overwhelming position, to focus on extensive protection, not to engage in large-scale development."

At a Media Open Day of Hubei on Sunday, reporters asked Gu Shengzu, a member of the NPC Standing Committee, vice chairman of the NPC Financial and Economic Committee, what significance will be brought from strengthening the construction of ecological civilization of the Yangtze River to promote the implementation of the Yangtze River economic belt development strategy, and where do the current focus and difficulty lie in establishing ecological Yangtze River, and what are the ways to resolution.

Gu admitted that since 10 million people drink water from the Yangtze River, water security has become largest resource security problem in China's green development.

Currently the sewage discharged from petrochemical industry into Yangtze River reaches 30-40 billion tons annually, accounting for more than one third nationwide. The sewage is almost the equivalent of the Yellow River water annually discharged into the Yangtze. Water is the life of a city so a city without water would find it to make great development.

Hubei has put "green development is life and death" at the top of the agenda and planed to create "Fertile Yangtze River" on the basis of "Clean Yangtze River" and "Ecological Yangtze River".

"The natural law of water is that people give water a way out, water gives people way to exist." Gu said that with a clear direction, tackling the source, improving the system, establishing a mechanism, strict management, strong security and so on, these six major initiatives should be taken to keep the Mother River alive and vital.

He said people should adhere to strengthen environmental management and ecological restoration, purify water systems, improve water quality and the living environment and build ecological compensation mechanism of Yangtze River Economic Belt according to the principle that: "Those who develop must protect water quality; who destroyed, restore; who benefit, compensate; who pollute, pay a fine".