| Water is the source of life, key of production, base of ecology. China is a country of water resource shortage, per capita consumption is only one-fourth of the world's average level. Dalian is one of the 108 domestic cities seriously shorting in water in China. The water shortage in urban water supply has restricted economic and social development. How to give full play to the role of water pricing as an economic lever to promote sustainable use of water resources has become a hot issue of concern to all parties.This paper focuses on four aspects. In the first part, it briefly describes the background and significance of urban water pricing management in Dalian and the views about this issue at home and abroad. In the second part, based on the public property management theory, it explains the quasi-public property characters of urban water and the meaning of the urban water pricing; analyzes urban water supply management practices in United States, Japan and the UK, and gets implications from the management experiences in the three representative countries for application in Dalian. In view of the situation in Dalian, the third part summarizes the status of urban water supply, the key water management system in Dalian, alteration in the prices of water supply and in particular, the existing problems. The last part is related to improvement program of urban water pricing management, mainly including the transformation of government functions, speeding up the marketing process of urban water supply management, optimizing water pricing mechanism; introducing competition, deepening the water supply enterprise reform, improving management efficiency, reducing operating costs of water resources; establishment of an independent water supply industry as the third sector, enhancing consumer participation in the management of urban water supply in public awareness, so as to ultimately achieve the goal of the full utilization of water resources and a steady socio-economic development. |
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