SOEs called to help alleviate drought crisis

Companies donate money, equipment, and goods to help locals facing severe hardship

As the worst drought to hit China in a century leaves tens of millions of people in the country's southwest short of water, the State assets watchdog has called on State-owned enterprises (SOEs) to join the disaster-relief campaign.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said in a news briefing last week that the centrally-administrated SOEs under its supervision, especially those operating in the country's drought-hit southwestern region, should take on the task of maintaining the supply of electricity, oil, water, transportation and other necessary commodities to the affected areas.

In response to this call, several SOEs have taken action to mitigate the affect of the drought.

China Southern Power Grid has helped to install electricity generation stations for water pumping.

The company has reduced electricity exported from Yunnan by 2.3 billion kilowatts and from Guizhou by 1.34 billion kilowatts, during the first quarter, to prioritise electricity supply within the affected areas.

China Southern's subsidiary Guangxi Power Grid has established 4,500 water pump stations and donated 350 water-drilling machines. Another subsidiary Yunnan Power Grid has invested 38.6 million yuan to dispatch 248 emergency power generation stations and 27 power generation cargos.

Guangxi Power has organized 7,800 workers to join the drought combat team, and arranged 1,070 trucks to carry 2,340 tons of water to the affected population.

To ensure a steady supply of oil and petroleum, China Petrochemical Corp has imported 2.7 million tons of oil to Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing, about 34,300 tons per day, an increase of 13.4 percent year-on-year.

The company has also donated 5 million yuan respectively to Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou for disaster relief.

The Yunnan unit of China Petrochemical Corp has helped the cause by delivering oil for free and reducing prices to a value of 62 million yuan.

The company's staff has also volunteered to make a total donation of 1.95 million yuan.

Other SOEs have also made efforts. Sinopec has set up a volunteer team to send water to local residents in Yunnan and Guangxi.

China Telecom has spent 20 million yuan on repair and maintenance work to cable, and machinery. In addition, 13,469 employees in China Telecom have donated 713,330 yuan for drought-relief.

China Southern Airlines have arranged special flights to transport 16 tons of bottled water from Guangzhou to local primary schools in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province.

The Yunnan Copper Co, a subsidiary of China Aluminum Corp, has donated 15 million yuan to Yunnan provincial government for the campaign.

Government authorities said China's severe drought was still expanding. The drought has had a serious impact on the life of the locals and economic development, leaving 24.25 million people and 15.84 million farm animals short of water.

China Daily

(China Daily 04/06/2010 page15)