The projects began this month with the expansion of the Jiangsu section of the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway with investment forecast at nine billion yuan (US$1.08 billion).

Jiangsu is one of the major economic powerhouses in China, accounting for one tenth of the country's total economy and one tenth of the country's total foreign investment.

According to the economic development plan mapped out by the province at the start of the year, the total fixed assets investment of the province will top 431 billion yuan (US$51.9 billion) this year, up 12 percent year-on-year.

In addition, Jiangsu has given priority to the country's key south-to-north water diversion project. The eastern section of the project is scheduled to be completed within three years with investment hitting 830 million yuan (US$100 million).

The province also planned to invest 3.7 billion yuan (US$445 million) on the construction of water conservation projects.

During the first four months this year, Suzhou City injected investment totaling 748 million yuan (US$90 million) into expressway development.

At present, a total of 17 expressways are under construction in the province with a total planned length of 1,700 kilometers. According to the provincial transportation department, some 300 kilometers of expressways will be completed this year.

Jiangsu has also vowed to speed up telecommunications development and will invest 160 billion yuan (US$19.3 billion) by the end of the year in the technical renovation of its telecommunications sector.

During the first four months of the year, foreign-financed enterprises in Jiangsu registered a total of 10.29 billion US dollars in export earnings, up 52.6 percent year-on-year, accounting for 66.7 percent of the province's total in the same period. This represented an increase of 4.3 percentage points year-on-year, according to the provincial economic and trade department.

Statistics showed that, during the period from 1992 to 2002, Jiangsu's foreign-financed enterprises boosted export volume from US$1.3 billions to US$24.26 billion, an annual 200 percent increase.

Jiangsu's direct foreign investment now exceeds US$60 billion, with US$50 billion invested in the manufacturing sector.

The large number of massive and high-tech foreign-financed projects have effectively improved the province's industrial structures and sharply expanded its exports.

In 2002, some 34 foreign-financed enterprises in Jiangsu recorded respective export earnings of more than US$100 million. Four of them earned more than US$500 million, and two reached US$1 billion.

(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2003)