_:BEIJING: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $200 million loan to improve ecosystem and climate resilience in Jiangxi, China.
Jiangxi Province is located along the Yangtze River Economic Belt, a key engine of economic growth in China. It has rich natural resources and strategic ecological importance, including the PRC’s largest freshwater lake Poyang Lakebut is adversely affected by rapid, un-sustainainable, and resource-intensive development and climate impacts, causing pollution, declining water levels, and loss of habitat.
The project will focus on improving institutional capacity, helping the Jiangxi provincial government enable sustainable development and a circular economy. This will include enhancing tools to support natural capital-oriented decision making and investment, integrating digitalization platforms to manage water resources, building disaster risk early warning systems, as well as preparing integrated action plans for low-carbon development, according to a press statement iss
ued here.
The project will supplement government efforts to improve wastewater pollution control systems in old urban neighbourhoods and rural areas. It will upgrade infrastructure elements, such as pipelines, household septic tanks, and wastewater treatment plants; strengthen the maintenance mechanisms; and promote water recycling and low-powered wastewater treatment techniques to ensure sustainability and climate resilience. It will also support the rehabilitation of the river basins and install climate adaptation facilities, including ecological embankments and water conservancy facilities like mini dams, irrigation canals, and pump stations.
To promote a low-carbon circular economy and sustainable local product value chains, the project will upgrade planting and processing facilities, construct agriculture service centers to support circular agribusiness, install a construction waste recycling and reuse plant, and support the safe closure and ecological remediation of a former landfill site to convert t
o a public green open space. It also includes public awareness-raising and skills training, particularly with women, to promote livelihood opportunities in waste management, waste segregation, and recycling and other circular economy.
The total cost of the project is $365 million, with $254.21 million financing on climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. It is expected to be completed by 2029.