Quotable

"We cannot conclude that water sources are good quality just because routine indicators meet the criteria."

Ling Jiang, deputy director of the pollution prevention department at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, speaking at an ecological forum in Guiyang that ended on July 21. Although 95.3 percent of monitored drinking water sources in 113 major cities met national standards last year, people should not be unconcerned, Ling says, adding China has no special national standards to monitor drinking water sources.

"Shanghai residents are investment-savvy and that explains why the city has more households owning two properties than any other Chinese city. But at the same time, new migrants to Shanghai are less financially capable of buying a flat. This resulted in the divide in terms of home ownership."

Ren Qiang, deputy director of the Institute of Social Science Survey at Peking University, talks about the wealth gap, after the institute released a report saying that nearly 90 percent of Chinese households own at least one property and 10 percent own more than one.

"As the economy rapidly develops, it's time we work on boosting our ecological environment of our habitat with all our efforts."

Dai Bingguo, former State councilor of China, saying at a news conference on July 19 in Guiyang, ahead of the opening ceremony of the Eco-Forum Global Annual Conference on July 20, that while learning about how to cope with ecological degradation from developed countries, China will come up with its own environmental protection methods.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/26/2013 page3)