SINGAPORE - Singapore's water agency Public Utilities Board (PUB) spends 1.3 billion Singapore dollars ($1.03 billion) a year on capital and operating expenses, local daily Business Times reported on Wednesday.

It collected about 1.04 billion Singapore dollars from water charges, and the Ministry of Finance collected another 175.6 million Singapore dollars from water conservation taxes. These add up to 1.2 billion Singapore dollars ($952 million), which is the revenue of the water agency, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said.

"A plan for a 50-year safe, secure, resilient supply of water for our country does not come cheap," he said in the parliament. The minister also affirmed the principle that water has to remain correctly priced.

As a city state short of fresh water supply of its own, Singapore secured two water supply agreements in 1961 ahead of its independence from Malaysia in 1965, with one of them having expired in 2011 and the other to expire in 2061, respectively.

Singapore has been investing heavily in the water industry and infrastructure and has been successful in its efforts to achieve water self-sufficiency through the building of reservoirs to boost rain water collection, waste water treatment and desalination. Balakrishnan has said Singapore is on track to achieving water self-sufficiency by 2061. (1 US dollar = 1.26 Singapore dollars)