Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, signed 28 agreements worth $1.6 billion with hi-tech, hotel-building and tourism businesses in Beijing and Tianjin last week. Guiyang plans to expand local demand through promoting investment and tourism and adjusting its industrial structure to cope with the financial crisis, Yuan Zhou, mayor of Guiyang, told media last week in Beijing. The city will soon start building six high-speed railways, which will link with Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong province, Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province, and Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan province this year.

BOC loans

Bank of China (BOC) said on March 9 that it signed an agreement to provide the central province of Hubei with 300 billion yuan in loans for construction.

The Beijing-based bank said the loans would support projects in urban infrastructure, transportation, electricity, iron and steel, automobiles and other industries, as well as agricultural programs. It said the lending program would last for several years.

The bank also agreed to provide the State-owned China Three Gorges Project Corp with up to 50 billion yuan to finance the Hubei-based company's "going global" strategy.

Telecom giants

China's three telecom giants, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, recently signed strategic cooperation agreements with the Zhejiang provincial government to invest more than 100 billion yuan in the province.

Under the agreements, China Mobile will invest 50 billion yuan over the next five years, of which 12 billion yuan will be invested this year.

China Unicom said it will spend 20 billion yuan on network construction and further increase 3G network coverage in the province.

Coal reserves

A coalfield with estimated coking coal reserves exceeding 3 billion tons has been discovered in Cao county, Heze city, Shandong province, local Chinese media reported.

The new coalfield is valued at 1.5 trillion yuan based on current coking coal prices.

Another coalfield, principally containing coking coal and bituminous coal, has reportedly been found in Juye county, Heze. Its predicted reserves are 5.57 billion tons.

2nd-hand property

Second-hand property transactions in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, reached 4,721 units in February, up from 3,317 units the previous month. The February figures are the highest for a single month since June 2007.

Nanjing had 12,092 second-hand properties for sale last month and the average price was 60 yuan per sq m higher than January.

Harbin property

Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, has earmarked 16 billion yuan to start property construction with a potential floor area of 14 million sq m, of which 4.5 million sq m are expected to be completed this year, according to the city's real estate development department. The city also intends to build affordable apartments with potential floor area of 1 million sq m, amounting to 18 percent of the total residential property construction in 2009.

(China Daily 03/16/2009 page5)