BEIJING, March 23 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank approved on Thursday a loan of 96 million U.S. dollars to help finance the clean up of the heavily polluted Pearl River in South China's Guangdong Province.

    The financing deal, which involves a total investment of 188 million dollars, will initiate the second phase of a massive clean up of the Pearl River Delta.

    The loan will help expand wastewater treatment facilities in the cities of Foshan and Jiangmen which generate about 15 percent of the wastewater let into the Pearl River.

    The project will also reinforce the riverbank to prevent flooding and establish a water quality monitoring system.

    In 2004 the World Bank helped finance the construction of a wastewater treatment facility for the provincial capital Guangzhou, which was the largest single source of the river's pollution.

    As one of the fastest growing regions in China, the environment around the Pearl River Delta has paid a huge price, as until recently industrial and domestic waste was not being properly treated before it was released into the river.

    The Guangdong provincial government initiated a clean up plan for the Pearl River in 2002. The plan calls for investing more than five billion U.S. dollars in wastewater treatment facilities by the turn of the decade.