At a recent conference in Guilin, Chen Lui said that The Chinese Water Resources Ministry plans to reduce consumption per unit of gross domestic product 60 percent by 2020.

the covereage of the speech was brief to say the least (someone needs to start taking better notes), and no “solutions” were mentioned, but from the Reuters article China vows to squeeze 60 percent more out of its water, a few details of what the goals are were mentioned:

Specifically, the government plans by 2020 to reduce to 125 cubic meters (27,500 gallons) the amount of water used for each 10,000 yuan ($1,460) of gross domestic product, Chen said

Details on the solutions aside, the above goal is in theory a good one as a measure of how efficiently water is being used, but where this number becomes worthless to me is that the northern half of the country is experiencing sever water shortages on a regular basis, and gaining efficiencies is not going to solve that problem.