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Legislators lashed out at China's duplicated investment
projects, saying the duplication of low-technology projects menaces
the country's bid for sustainable economic development.
Zhu Xianfa, a deputy of east China's Anhui Province to the
National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature,
said it took a year for Anhui to close down more than 100 small
plants that manufacture cheap but shoddy steel bars, a type of
building materials banned by local governments.
Ma Kai, minister in charge of the State Development and Reform
Commission, acknowledged that the sectors of textiles, iron and
steel, automobiles, non-ferrous metals, and construction materials
have been troubled and bogged down by over-investment, the
repetition of low-technology investment and irrational
competitions.
Zhang Qicheng, an NPC deputy of north China's Hebei Province,
said the country's steel output exceeded 200 million tons in 2003
while a group of large iron and steel projects are still being
planned or constructed.
By 2005, the country's iron and steel production capacity would
total 330 million tons, 60 million tons more than the projected
market demand, said the deputy.
The duplicated investment in the sectors of glass, cement,
ceramics has been a long-standing problem despite government's
clampdown, which has been detrimental to the healthy growth of
these sectors, said the deputy.
There are a total of 117 auto plants in 27 provincial regions
with approximately 2,000 plants producing auto parts, he said.
Excessive investment was also recorded in redundant airport
projects in the Yangtze River Delta region including Shanghai. The
delta is one of the country's fast-growing areas where a number of
smaller airports are running in red.
The excessive expansion of those sectors have resulted in short
supplies of energy in two thirds of the country's provincial
regions in 2003.
China has issued warnings on over investment over the past few
months, and moved to take tougher actions to tackle the issue,
including stringent control of bank loans, and threat of penalties
to government officials that approve those projects.
(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2004)
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