The South-to-North Water Diversion Project has dual characteristics of public welfare and operating purposes, which determines that project construction funds must not only have government financial capital investment, but also for operating projects, a certain scale of credit funds can be used to raise part of the construction funds through market means.

The investment of government financial funds must be jointly raised by the central finance and local finance in accordance with the principle of "who benefits, who bears the burden".

The central government proposed raising water prices and establishing a special government fund to raise funds.

Therefore, the "South-to-North Water Diversion Master Plan" finally determined the financing plan for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, which consists of three parts: central budget funds, South-to-North Water Diversion Project Funds and bank loans. Among them, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Fund accounts for about 25% of the project investment.

According to rough estimates, Shijiazhuang City will need to collect about 1.4 billion yuan for the South-to-North Water Diversion Main Canal Project Fund in the six years from 2005 to 2010, of which 248 million yuan will be collected in 2005-2006.

The fund will be directly attached to the water price, collected uniformly by the price department, and all will be turned over to the national treasury for project construction.