China's urban construction sector formerly monopolized by the government has opened to non-State capital as a massive gas pipe project funded by a joint venture was launched here Thursday in south China's Jiangxi Province.
The Honggutan Gas Piping Project contracted by the Nanchang Ruisheng Gas Industrial Company Limited involves an investment of 120 million yuan (about US$14.46 million) and will meet the gas demands of 160,000 people across a land area of 10.29 square kilometers.
Director Hu Guoguang of the Nanchang Public Utility Management Bureau said that the project marks the opening of the city's urban construction sector to foreign capital.
"In the past, it was really hard to imagine that a public utility project like this could be approved and launched so fast," he said.
According to Hu, the lubricant was a direction by the Ministry of Communications earlier this year to quicken the opening-up of China's public utility market.
Calling the guidance a landmark document, Hu said that the opening-up would speed up the country's construction of cities and townships and uplift the utilization of capital from both home and abroad.
By financing the piping project, the Nanchang Ruisheng Gas Industrial Company Limited will be licensed the rights of operation and management for 50 years.
Statistics from the Ministry of Communications reveal that infrastructure is the weakest link in China's urban construction as most cities' input into it takes up only two percent of their total gross domestic products, far less than the three to five percent held by developing countries on average.
(Xinhua News Agency July 4, 2003)
