The city this year will double its expenditure on urban construction compared with the 2000 level.

The first phase of cleaning up Suzhou Creek will be the top priority project this year, Vice Mayor Han Zheng said yesterday.

The construction of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, where a summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum was held in October, was listed as the top project last year.

An estimated 52.4 billion yuan (US$6.31 billion) will be spent on 76 urban construction projects in Shanghai this year, including new railway lines and expressways and the final stages of a effort to clean up Suzhou Creek.

The spending will represent a 14 percent increase from a year earlier, and is almost double the amount spent in 2000. A large part of the money, about 42 percent, will be spent on transportation and environmental protection facilities.

The four-year battle to clean up Suzhou Creek will cost 6.2 billion yuan in total.

About half of that money has already been spent, mostly to lay underground pipes to collect waste from hundreds of factories and neighborhoods and build a new treatment facility. In the final stage, the city will focus on digging out silt.

This year will see 22 new projects kick off and 26 completed, including the first phase of a deep-water port near Hangzhou Bay and the construction is expected to open around June.

This year will also see the trial run of the city's magnetic levitation rapid rail line, the world's first in commercial use.

Also on the spending list are five new urban rail traffic lines and 40 stations, including the 22.6-kilometer Yangpu Line connecting Jiangwan Town in the north and Zhongshan Road S. in the southern part of the city.

Currently, five other rail lines, including the north and south extensions of Metro Line 1, are under construction.

Additionally, the city will see four new expressways open to traffic by year end.

(eastday.com March 1, 2002)