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Ecological cities will begin to appear in China in some 20-30 years.

Shanghai is expected to be one of the earliest eco-cities by 2010. The municipality is now drawing relative goals and criteria.

Shanghai has just started up a "healthy city" program which needs 70 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion) spent on over 300 projects. All the main environmental indexes will reach standards laid out by the World Health Organization (WHO) by 2010 when the World Expo takes place in this city.

In recent years, Shanghai has earmarked 3 percent of its GDP on environmental protection.

Foshan in south China's Guangdong Province is also expected to be an eco-city by 2010. Others like east China's Zhejiang and Shandong provinces have also started "eco-province" programs.

With a fast increasing ratio of urbanization in China, every big city will face pressure on its natural resources and environment.

Chu Dajian, a professor with Shanghai-based Tongji University, considers that Chinese cities will confront ecological pressure 3-4 times in the next 20-30 years. Till 2030, over 400 million people will swarm into the cities. With consumption increasing, cities will face greater pressure on natural resources and their environment. Take Shanghai for example, everyday over 4,400 tons of garbage and 6,500 tons of industrial wastes have nowhere to go. The city's particle pollutants in the air are 3-6 times compared with developed countries.

The situation in west China is even worse.

Though some cities intend to be built into eco-cities and local governments have earmarked more funds for their eco-environment construction, Chinese ecologists are not optimistic about the future.

Niu Wenyuan, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out that the deteriorative trend of Chinese ecology cannot be restrained in a short time. However, some large and medium-size cities can decrease natural resource consumption by constructing "virtual cities." The strategy can bring opportunities for the eco-city construction.