Infrastructure projects on steady track as issuance of local govt bonds speeds up

Construction workers of China Railway 24th Bureau Group Corp install the first box girder of the Lanjiang railway bridge along the Jinhua-Jiande High-speed Railway in Zhejiang province last week. [CHINA DAILY]

Infrastructure projects nationwide are expected to further gather pace this year, as the issuance of local government special bonds has progressed much faster and is more advanced this year than in previous years, which experts said will not only boost projects under construction but also prompt the launch of more key projects.

According to market observer Wind Info, as of Wednesday, local governments had issued 1,095 new special bonds within the year, with a scale of 3.09 trillion yuan ($421.7 billion).

From the perspective of issuance progress, the scale of new special bonds issued accounted for more than 81 percent of the annual limit or 3.8 trillion yuan. In addition, the monthly issuance scale in August reached 594.6 billion yuan, a new high for the year.

Citing the figure, Long Chaocan, an investment consultant with China Galaxy Securities Co Ltd, said as special bond issuance is a major fund resource for infrastructure construction, it is likely to witness more projects being launched during the rest of the year to spur domestic demand, with existing ones seeing accelerated progress.

"Compared to other available measures to shore up recovery, infrastructure investment boasts the advantages of high effectiveness and efficiency in boosting investment. The rest of the year, the country also needs to maintain or enhance strength in the sector to stabilize momentum using other tools, such as expanding fiscal spending, to keep the nation's economy on a steady track," Long said.

China Railway 24th Bureau Group Corp, a unit of China Railway Construction Corp, said its construction teams on projects nationwide are progressing steadily, with a latest milestone on the Jinhua-Jiande High-speed Railway in Zhejiang province.

The company said the first box girder of the Lanjiang railway bridge, also the first one for the second bid of the local railway project, was successfully installed last week — a leap toward final operation.

Spanning the Lanjiang River in Jinhua's Lanxi, Zhejiang, the 1.27-kilometer-long project is a key bridge construction mission on the building blueprint of the railway, of which over 91 percent of the construction work is related to bridge and tunnel projects.

The construction team is working smoothly with the help of local government units and will complete the building of the bridge on time, CR24 said in its construction progress report.

The bridge is expected to achieve full linkage by the end of the year, according to a report by Zhejiang Daily earlier this year.

With a designed speed of 250 kilometers per hour, the Jinhua-Jiande HSR is a locally built project linking Zhejiang's Jinhua, Lanxi and Jiande with China's major railway network and aims to provide faster rail service for passengers traveling between Zhejiang and inland provinces.