As infrastructure plays an important role in economic growth, China is stepping up efforts to promote sustainable development in the industry and advance global infrastructure construction and connectivity, experts said Tuesday.
"During the recently concluded G20 summit held in Hangzhou [capital of East China's Zhejiang Province] in September, China launched an initiative to establish a global infrastructure connectivity alliance and increase the financial input and intellectual support for infrastructure projects, with the aim of accelerating the global infrastructure connectivity process," Yuan Si, vice chairman of the Tsinghua University Council and a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday.
China is in a special period of economic transformation. In a bid to effectively employ its social and economic resources, the country is expected to pursue growth in a green way through efforts to tackle pollution, Yuan said.
"The construction and operation of infrastructure [projects] is quite energy-intensive. Therefore, China must try to seek sustainable development in the sector to make a contribution to the world's sustainable growth," he noted.
It is important to find new ways to realize global sustainable infrastructure connectivity and promote sustainable regional development by technological innovation and multilateral cooperation, according to experts.
To promote sustainable infrastructure growth, global leading automaker Volvo Group launched a white paper on transport solutions and connectivity during the meeting, which illustrated the findings of various worldwide case studies in the sector.
"In 2014, Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE), a business unit of Volvo Group, launched a Construction Climate Challenge project for global society that aims to build an effective dialogue platform for the industry and to promote communication on the topic of climate action," said Bill Law, senior vice president of corporate communications of VCE.
To ensure that infrastructure projects are environmentally friendly and achieve targets for energy conservation, efforts are needed when it comes to setting and supervising policies, unifying industrial standards, upgrading technology and pursuing marketization, Qian Xiaojun, associate dean of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
