26 January 2004	Monday	03 Zilhaj 1424

BEIJING, Jan 25: China has offered Pakistan technology to desalinate sea water for use in agriculture and for drinking purposes, a senior official from Tianjin Institute of Seawater Desalination here told APP.

"This technology can bring about a revolution in overcoming the problem of water shortage in the country," Ruan Guo, from the institute said. He claimed that seawater, after purification through the newly-developed technology could be used both for drinking and agriculture purposes.

A package of this offer has been formally sent to Pakistan through its embassy in Beijing. The Chinese company has already installed a seawater desalination plant at the under-construction Gwadar seaport as its pilot project to introduce the technology in the country. This plant has been provided as a gift to Pakistan on the directives of the Chinese government.

Ruan Guo said, China is ready to cooperate in water desalination for which, a team of experts could visit Pakistan to negotiate the package. Three decades worth of effort in this technology area has made China one of the world's few countries capable of seawater desalination.

He was of the view that the seawater could be used as a more sustainable resource to overcome water shortage on the long-term basis. About the cost of the project, he said, "it is most cheap and reasonable as compared to other sources of water filtration."

To Pakistan, he assured his company would extend a 'special low cost package,' keeping in view their excellent friendly relations. To tackle a serious water shortage caused by a six-year dry spell, Tianjin, the largest coastal city in North China, started earlier this month to channel a total of 350-million cubic metres of Yellow River water to Tianjin from the Weishan Sluice Gate, 440 kilometres away.

Because of improved technology and production efficiency, the production cost of one ton of fresh water produced from seawater has been greatly reduced from 85 US cents to the present 60 cents, which makes it more marketable than ever.

According to sources, the technology could be utilized in the country after a proper feasibility study has been made. To cope with the growing water demand it had become inevitable to explore possible alternate bulk water supplysources for Karachi and other major cities and the Chinese technology may be more suitable for this purpose, they added.-APP