China's reservoir storage capacity expands in past decade

An aerial view of a coastal sewage treatment plant in Luqiao District, Taizhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, March 26, 2023.

China's reservoir storage capacity went up by 163.2 billion cubic meters in the past decade, an official said on March 14, 2024.

In the period, the country improved its basin flood control engineering system, which is mainly composed of reservoirs, river courses, embankments and flood storage areas, said Vice Minister of Water Resources Liu Weiping at a press conference.

The proportion of losses caused by floods and waterlogging to gross domestic product decreased from 0.51% in the previous decade to 0.24%, he said.

The annual completed investment in water conservancy construction climbed from 375.8 billion yuan (52.93 billion U.S. dollars) to 1.2 trillion yuan in the past decade, he said.

China to boost supervision of IPOs, listed firms, brokers, public offering funds

An exterior view of the office building of the Beijing Stock Exchange in Beijing.

China's securities watchdog will issue three guidelines to boost supervision of initial public offerings (IPOs), listed companies, brokers and public offering funds.

It will also release a guideline to improve its own capacities, said Li Chao, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on March 15, 2024.

The regulator will intensify its crackdown on financial fraud, particularly targeting five types of illegal practices, said Guo Ruiming, head of the CSRC Department of Listed Company Supervision.

They are long-term systemic fraud and third-party cooperation in fraudulent activities, fraudulent issuance of stocks and bonds, abuse of accounting policies to manipulate profits, falsification through activities like financing trade, and fraudulent actions that harm the interests of listed companies, according to Guo.

The regulator noted that it will enhance random sampling and on-site probes of companies slated for listing.

Yan Bojin, head of the CSRC Department of Public Offering Supervision, said that the CSRC will conduct thorough investigations into companies that withdraw their listing applications when they are subject to on-site probes.