Asia-Pacific nations to meet in Japan on water issues

Mar 29, 2007, 8:15 GMT

Tokyo - Member states of the Asia-Pacific region were committed on Thursday to secure safe drinking water access and cooperate in improving management of water-related disasters.

The working group committee members of the Asia-Pacific Water Summit met in Tokyo to prepare for the first conference scheduled December 3-4 in the southern Japanese city of Beppu.

At the December summit, participants from 49 nations and territories are expected to discuss financial plans to develop infrastructure for safe water, management of water-related disasters and development of ecosystem to sustain sufficient water resources.

The committee members plan to produce a Beppu declaration at the end of the two-day meeting in December.

Global warming was also brought up at the committee meeting Thursday as it is a major cause of rising sea levels, provoking water-related natural disasters, and of critical concern to small island nations of the Pacific region.

Liqun Jin, vice president of Asia Development Bank, warned that excessive extraction of underground water would result in serious consequences in some regions.

The Asia-Pacific region must establish a monitoring system to gather sufficient data, Hideaki Oda of the water summit secretariat said. Some 670 million people in the Asia Pacific region were without access to safe drinking water in 2004.