More than one trillion yuan will be poured into Wuhan, capital city of central China's Hubei Province, and eight other smaller cities in the years running to 2020 for boosting the local economy and build a "resource-saving and environmentally friendly society".

According to a blueprint unveiled by the provincial government on Saturday, a total of 1.143 trillion yuan will be invested in 131 major projects in the nine cities, which were approved by the central government last December to be an experimental zone for resource-saving and environmentally friendly programs.

The other eight cities are Huangshi, Huanggang, Xiantao, Xianning, Tianmen, Qianjiang, Ezhou and Xiao'gan.

Fifty-eight projects, which will cost 537.5 billion yuan, will be started this year.

A new state-owned investment company, Hubei United Development Investment Co Ltd, was set up on Saturday with a registered capital of 3.2 billion yuan to raise money for these projects.

The firm's shareholders include the provincial government, the nine municipal governments and six state-owned enterprises, such as Dongfeng Motor Corp, Wuhan Iron & Steel Corp and China Three Gorges Project Corp.

Li Hongzhong, governor of Hubei, said the nine cities as a whole are expected to be a fourth growth engine for China's economy after the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Bohai Bay Rim areas, which are all in the east.

The city cluster will also lead in the rise of China's central region, Li said.

The provincial government aims to build the nine cities, which account for 60 percent of Hubei's GDP and cover a third of its territory, into an ecological and livable area as well as an important base of advanced manufacturing, hi-tech, quality agricultural product processing and modern service industries, according to the plan.

The nine cities will share resources of infrastructure, industry deployment, regional markets and urban and rural construction, environmental protection and ecological construction over the next five years.

(China Daily October 1, 2008)