BEIJING, July 23 -- China has invested more than 265.1 billion yuan (43.3 billion U.S. dollars) in domestic railway construction in the first half of the year, up 12.7 percent from one year earlier, China Railway Corporation said on Thursday.

In the first six months, an additional 2,226 km of new railway lines were put into service, the company said in a statement to Xinhua.

To bolster a slowing economy, the Chinese government has made railway infrastructure one of the seven prioritized sectors for investment. The rest include environmental protection, clean energy, the power grid and health care.

At the start of 2015, the country set targets of investing more than 800 billion yuan in railway construction for this year and creating 8,000 km of new lines on track.