A central government fund worth 124.3 billion yuan (20.2 billion U.S. dollars) announced on Wednesday to finance affordable housing has marked China's hastened fiscal spending to prop up investment as the economy slows.
Also on the same day, the central government announced plans to spend 1,130 billion yuan over the next three years on Internet infrastructure in an effort to tap the consumption potential of rural Internet users.
Growth-stabilizing measures have dominated the headlines lately, after China's top leadership, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made this one of its priorities in late April. It has particularly emphasized investment's key role in stabilizing growth.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planning body, announced earlier this week that nearly 250 billion yuan will be invested in six new railways.
The projects include four high-speed lines in the eastern provinces of Shandong and Jiangsu, and in the northeastern province of Liaoning, and two urban rail transits in the southwestern cities of Chengdu and Nanning.
The financing for these projects will come from a combination of fiscal funds from local governments, the state-owned China Railway Group and bank loans, according to the NDRC.
The government has announced roughly one pro-growth measure every two days since May, according to a report in Beijing newspaper The China Times on Thursday. It labeled the accelerated spending a "salvation to the slowing economy".
"The measures unveiled by the government this month are designed to inject money into certain regions to boost construction," said Zhang Hanya, president of the Investment Association of China.
