The FINANCIAL — GE Water & Process Technologies on November 18 announced it has donated and transferred operational ownership for two advanced water treatment systems to Dongguang County, which will provide clean drinking water for more than 40,000 residents in Dongguang City.
Dedicated as a gift to the people of China, the systems are designed to help protect human health by removing fluoride and other containments for clean, sustainable, potable water.
GE next will donate a mobile water treatment plant that will purify water for the neighboring villages of Dongguang and supply clean drinking water to an additional 20,000 residents. This plant will be the first application of an advanced mobile water treatment system used in China to bring clean water to areas that are not within reach of the nation’s municipal water infrastructure.
GE’s water treatment solutions can treat virtually any water source and could potentially play a key role in helping China meet its goal of providing safe, reliable water supplies by 2015 to more than 300 million people living in rural areas.
Due to China’s geographic location and natural environment, most readily available underground water is either brackish, meaning a combination of sea and fresh waters, or fresh water but with a high fluorine concentration. GE provides advanced water treatment technologies, which remove salt, bacteria and other impurities to produce water that meets stringent global standards for human consumption.
“We are extremely excited to announce the official transfer of the donated water treatment equipments to the people of China,” said Weifang Zhou, president of GE Water & Process Technologies Greater China. “We are committed to leveraging GE’s broad portfolio of water solutions to help China achieve its clean water objectives for urban and rural citizens. The experience that we gain from this project will strengthen our ability to further help China and other nations overcome traditional infrastructure challenges to deliver clean water to hundreds of millions of people in the world’s rural communities.”
Government officials from Chinese Ministry of Water Resources (MWR), Hebei province and Dongguang county, as well as leaders from GE attended the ceremony for this gift of the advanced water systems. The leaders from MWR gave recognized GE and offered sincere gratitude for this newest gift.
“We are very thankful for GE’s donation today, as well as their commitment for creating economical and portable technologies that can provide clean drinking water in rural areas. We look forward to expanding our partnership with GE.” said Ni Wenjin, Vice Director of the Center for Rural Drinking Water Safety, Ministry of Water Resources in China.
Earlier this year, GE donated more than 60 water purification systems as part of its overall efforts to help support people and towns in the earthquake-affected region. In total, GE has provided more than US $4.3 million in water purification, emergency lighting, X-ray, anesthesia, ultrasound, monitoring and other equipment that has been dispatched across the Chengdu, Gansu and Sichuan provinces.
Today’s gift was announced earlier this year as part of GE’s lasting commitment to China during and beyond the Beijing Olympics. For the Olympics, GE ecomagination solutions included China’s first advanced membrane rainwater recycling system at Beijing’s National Stadium to help maintain a sustainable supply of water for landscape irrigation, facility maintenance and a fire-suppression system; and an energy-efficient nanofiltration system that provides up to 16 cubic meters of drinking water per hour—equal to 32,000 bottles of water—for the National Stadium.
Print 
PDF