An artificial rain project costing 1.15 billion yuan ($168 million) has been approved by China's top economic planning agency for the country's dry northwestern provinces; the South China Morning Post reported. The project is part of a government program to modify the weather and will take three years. It comes as China's Meteorological Administration found that with the proposed investment, rainfall and snow could rise in a 960,000 sq km area which is 10 percent of the country, and more than one-and-a-half times the size of France. The money will cover the purchase of four new planes, the upgrade of eight existing aircraft, the development of 897 rocket launch devices and connection of 1,856 devices to digital control systems. The rainmaking project is expected to help with "ecological security, water resource allocation, drought-fighting and forest fire prevention" in provinces plagued by water shortages, according to He Shengcun, an official at the Qinghai provincial government's