Construction Booming in China

China's construction industry yielded an output value of 386.9 billion yuan (47.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year, up 12.8 percent over the same period last year, according to China Construction News.

Completed construction projects in the first half year were valued at 147 billion yuan (18.4 billion U.S. dollars ), up 23.15 billion yuan (2.9 billion U.S. dollars), a rise of 18.7 percent.

The area of projects under construction in the January-June period totaled 925 million square meters of floor space, up 7.7 percent, and completed construction area totaled 146 million square meters of floor space, some 19.98 million square meters more than the first half of last year.

Some 148,100 projects were contracted through public bidding, up 20.9 percent over the same 1998 period, accounting for 42.4 percent of the total, and covering an area of 523 million square meters of floor space.