Amid rapid economic expansion, infrastructure construction in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, achieved further progress in the first half of 2017.

The city recorded 58.9 billion yuan ($8.69 billion) in gross domestic product in the first quarter of the year, an increase of 8 percent from the same period last year.

In the first five months, large and medium-sized industrial enterprises' gross profit increased 7.1 percent to 31.4 billion yuan. Government revenue surged roughly 30 percent to 23 billion yuan.

Transport has been the bottleneck for Zhanjiang's growth, but the government is vigorously improving it. It invested 2.73 billion yuan in transport infrastructure construction from January to May this year, up about 37 percent year-on-year.

The Overseas Chinese Town - a State-owned tourism, culture and real estate enterprise - plans to invest 100 billion yuan to build a first-class highway circling the coast of the Leizhou Peninsula, where the city is located.

The Donghai Island Railway, a crucial part of the west coast high-speed rail project in Guangdong, is due to be completed by the end of September. The railway will provide strong support to the city's key projects, such as the steel facility established by Baosteel Group and the Zhanjiang government.

In addition, a high-speed railway linking the city with Guangzhou is also due to be completed in June 2018.

Construction on a new airport will kick of this October. In the first five months, the existing Zhanjiang Airport served 839,000 passengers, up 34 percent.

According to the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) for the transport system released by the Guangdong Development and Reform Commission in April, the new Zhanjiang airport is positioned as an international hub to link major domestic cities with those in Southeast Asia.

Zhanjiang has also unveiled plans to build new or expand existing industrial facilities.

In the first five months of this year, Baosteel's Zhanjiang facility achieved an output value of 14 billion yuan, a remarkable three-fold increase on the same period last year.

During the same period, Chenming Group's paper plant saw a rise of 25 percent in output value.

The city has built one of the world's largest papermaking base, and is working on new logistic parks and advaced technology industrial zones.

Enhancing major industrial facilities is one of the five industrial development plans proposed by Zhanjiang Party chief Zheng Renhao in April. Other measures include upgrading traditional industries and speeding up the development of modern sectors such as the services, high-tech and marine industries.

(China Daily 07/19/2017 page14)