China to Invest 250b Yuan in Rural Public Project Construction

BEIJING, Mar. 18 -- China plans to set aside over 250 billion yuan ($38.06 billion) for construction of public projects in rural areas in the five years to 2015 to improve rural public services, government officials said on Thursday.

In 2011, the central government plans to allocate 16 billion yuan to its award and subsidy mechanism for village-level public projects, Zhang Shaochun, vice finance minister, said during a video work conference on Thursday.

The government will attach greater importance to construction of farmland irrigation and water conservancy projects in the five-year period, according to the conference.

China's government award and subsidy system for village-level public projects was launched in 2008 in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Yunnan and Hebei and was further expanded to 27 provinces by 2010.

In the past three years, central and local governments invested 47.7 billion yuan in the program and around 630,000 public projects were built in villages nationwide, including road network construction, water canal building and trees planting.