BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhua) -- China has accelerated the upgrading of investment in new infrastructure, new-type urbanization and other key projects in fields including transport and water conservancy.
Localities including Hubei, Liaoning and Sichuan provinces have been quickening the progress of such projects, the Economic Information Daily reported Thursday.
In Xiongan New Area in north China's Hebei Province, new infrastructure construction has been in full swing and preliminary results have been achieved, the report quoted an official with the area as saying.
On Monday, the State Grid Corporation of China announced it will invest 24.7 billion yuan (about 3.48 billion U.S. dollars) in new infrastructure across the country this year, with the funds mainly going to big data centers, industrial internet, 5G networks and artificial intelligence.
The company has inked strategic cooperation agreements with four internet giants Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, according to the report.
On the same day, a rail passenger line designed to link Mudanjiang and Jiamusi, two cities in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, started to lay tracks. One of the major projects on China's medium- and long-term rail development blueprint, it is also the northernmost rail line in extremely cold area under construction in the country.
These investments will not only boost domestic demand and drive growth, but also fuel economic transformation and help shore up weak links, said Lin Zhiyuan, a researcher with Xiamen University.
In May, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, approved seven fixed-asset investment projects with their combined investment totaling 129.8 billion yuan. The projects were mainly in the transportation and energy sectors. Enditem
