Beijing - Top government officials in Central China's Hunan province vowed to tackle the heavy metal pollution that has caused environmental deterioration and mounting health problems in Hunan.

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Zhou Qiang, Party secretary of Hunan province, said on Tuesday at the ongoing annual session of National People's Congress that he is confident the heavy metal pollution of the Xiangjiang River will be controlled during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period.

The pollution remediation plan of the country's most polluted river was included in the national blueprint. More than 40 million people live near the river, and local business within the region accounts for 70 percent of provincial GDP.

In recent years, a series of lead poisoning cases and the recent report on "cadmium rice" have put heavy metal pollution in Hunan under the spotlight.

"If there are any children tested to have excessive levels of lead in their blood, the government will make sure they receive free treatment," said Xu Shousheng, governor of Hunan, who promised to put full effort into ensuring the health of people so they can "breath fresh air, drink clear water and eat safe food".

Hunan is known as "the hometown of nonferrous metals". Government officials also promised that the pursuit of GDP growth will not be achieved at the cost of environmental deterioration and a rise in the frequency of health problems for its people. Xu said the work of local officials will be evaluated in the future on their environmental protection efforts.

Zhou said heavy metal pollution will take much longer than five years to solve, and the first step is to prevent new pollution from pouring into the river. The second step is to deal with the current heavy metals in the river.

Zhou said he hopes the gradual recovery of the ecological function of the river will "transform the 'Mother River' of Hunan into the 'Eastern Rhine'. "

Environmental Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian said at a televised conference in February this year that the national blueprint for 2015 has set an emission-reduction target of 15 percent from 2007 levels for five heavy metals in key polluted areas. The metals are lead, mercury, chromium, cadmium and arsenic.

In 2010, more than 200 children in Hunan's Chenzhou city suffered excessive lead levels in their blood due to pollution from the local mining industry. In 2009 more than 1,350 children in Wenping of Hunan were also diagnosed as having excessive levels of lead in their blood due to pollution from a local smelting plant.

Blood-poisoning cases are not only happening in Hunan, but all around China. A string of such cases have been reported in Shaanxi, Anhui, Guangdong, Sichuan, Fujian and Yunnan provinces in recent years.

In addition, a recent report by Nanjing Agricultural University said research in 2007 found 10 percent of rice samples collected from markets were found to have excessive levels of cadmium, revealing pervasive heavy metal pollution in China.