Rural infrastructure THE government will provide more cheap funds for rural infrastructure projects through the Pledged Supplementary Lending (PSL) program, the Housing Ministry said Tuesday. The PSL program, initiated in 2014, is designed to help the central bank better target medium-term lending rates and boost liquidity to specific sectors by offering low-cost loans to selected lenders, including policy banks. Investment soars THE Finance Ministry said Tuesday that investment in public-private partnership projects was valued at 11.8 trillion yuan (US$1.72 trillion) by the end of July. It will step up risk control for PPP projects, the Finance Ministry also said. Alibaba expansion CHINA’S largest e-commerce firm, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., has joined forces with a State fund and two technology firms in Russia, hoping that access to their client base of more than 100 million people will boost its development. Alibaba will own 48 percent of AliExpress Russia as a result of a deal signed with Russian Direct Investment Fund, mobile operator Megafon and internet group Mail.ru during Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum on Tuesday. Plane purchases CHINESE airlines will buy 7,690 new planes worth US$1.2 trillion over the next two decades to keep pace with booming consumer and business demand for air travel, Boeing Co. said Tuesday, raising a previous forecast. The U.S. planemaker’s latest estimate for the period to 2037 is 6.2 percent higher than its previous prediction of 7,240 planes until 2036 made last year. “The growth in China can be attributed to the country’s growing middle class, which has more than tripled in the last 10 years and is expected to double again in the next 10,” said Randy Tinseth, Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ vice president of marketing. |