China to promote rural infrastructure construction with inv't likely to exceed RMB4 trln

BEIJING, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- China will continuously promote the infrastructure construction in rural areas with expected investment of more than 4 trillion yuan during the period from 2018 to 2020 so as to put in place the rural vitalization strategy, according to the Xinhua-run Economic Information Daily on Tuesday.

It is reported that transportation logistics, rural water conservancy, energy supply, and information infrastructure will become the center of focus in the rural infrastructure construction.

In terms of the construction of transportation and logistics facilities, China will comprehensively promote the construction, management, maintenance and operation of the roads in the rural areas, and speed up the formation of rural logistics infrastructure network.

Regarding the construction of water conservancy infrastructure, the country will make efforts to promote construction of major water conservancy projects, build a number of new water-saving and ecological irrigation regions, and carry out transformation and renovation of large and medium-sized irrigation and drainage pumping stations.

In the energy field, the country will vigorously develop solar energy, shallow geothermal energy, biomass energy, etc., and accelerate the upgrading and transformation of power grids in rural areas.

In terms of information construction, it will accelerate the coverage of broadband networks and fourth-generation mobile communication networks, and implement the new-generation information infrastructure construction project.

Meanwhile, the local authorities will also increase efforts for the infrastructure construction in rural areas.

For example, Fujian Province will build and improve the township highways by more than 1,000 kilometers and the village roads by over 10,000 kilometers, set up 165 township transportation service stations, and establish a three-level logistics system involving the county, township and village in each county, according to Huang Xiangtan, director of Fujian Provincial Department of Transportation.

Recently, east China's Jiangsu Province has also put forward eight tasks to strengthen water conservancy projects in rural areas, such as projects of upgrading the water conservancy facilities, and the environmental remediation projects. (Edited by Hu Pingchao, hupingchao@xinhua.org)