Life of Guangzhou - Development of Municipal Construction

Since 1998 Guangzhou has started to implement the plan of "minor changes in one year, medium changes in three years and major changes by 2010". With "adaptation on the one hand, improvement on the other hand", the city has greatly fastened its city construction. The environmental situation has improved greatly accompanying with the striking development in city construction. Guangzhou is heading to its goal – to be a modern metropolis, which is able to give impetus to the whole province and influence the South China and Southeast Asia".

1. The development of municipal construction in year 2003

From 1998 to 2003, during these six years, the municipal government invested over 92 billion Yuan in the infrastructure construction, 2.68 times as much as 34.2 billion Yuan, the total amount invested within 48 years from 1949 to 1997. As a central city in south china, Guangzhou established the "double fast" traffic system led by the freeways and free tracks and aimed at forming an effective traffic network, with airport, harbors and railways being the core, public traffic systems being the bases and the railways being the backbone. The infrastructure construction was improved gradually. By the end of 2003, the newly built city area has reached 705 km2 and 7251.9 thousands registered residents lived in this city.

1.1 The outer city traffic system is under improvement

After 4 years’ construction of the phaseⅠ work of New Baiyun International Airport, the airport will open to passengers on August 5 2004. The carrying capacity will be of 25000 thousands for passengers and 1000 thousands tons for cargo per year. The phase Ⅱ work is under building now. After its final construction, the airport, with a carrying capacity of 80,000 thousands for customers and 2,500 thousands tons for cargo per year, will be one of the three main airports in the whole country. Today, Guangzhou harbor trades directly with more than 300 ports in 84 countries all over the world. In 2003, its throughput was 192 million tons. Now a big deepwater port is under construction and in September 2004, four deepwater piers with capacity of 50 thousands tons are expected to be put into operation.

1.2 The railway traffic network is under full speed construction

In 1993, Guangzhou started to construct the subway system. Until now, the subway line 1 and line 2 have been accomplished with a total length of 35 kilometers and daily carrying capacity of 325.6 thousands passengers. According to the agenda, by 2010, there would be total 7 lines to be put into service. The length will reach more than 290 kilometers altogether. Meanwhile, the railways between Guangzhou to Foshan,, Guangzhou to Shenzhen and Guangzhou to Zhuhai will be laid to form a highway channel around the "pearl delta". The Guangzhou segment of the railway between Guangzhou to Foshan has been under construction.

1.3 The network of the traffic system has been established

In recent years, Guangzhou has completed more than 210 major traffic projects, including freeways, over bridges and switch-system for cross-bridges and built and modified a few trunk roads. By the end of 2004, the South Freeway, Xinguang Highway, and Huanglan Branch Line will be finished. An entire municipal traffic network with clear structure, definite function and effective facility, formed by highways, freeways and other trunk roads will be deployed. In 2003, the road length in whole city was 4571 kilometers, with total area of 65630 thousands ㎡. The density of the network was 1.23 kilometers per k㎡ and the average area was 11.16 m2 per capita.

1.4 The ecological environment has been improved

Conducting the project of "Greening the hills and lands", Guangzhou has improved its outer ecological circles, the green transportation corridor, the city green scenery and the central green lands. A set of greening projects including forests parks, city parks and city green squares have been built. Until 2003, the green area rose to 110405 hectares added by the newly built green areas. The green coverage rate in the built area was 34.19% and 30.26% in the whole city. The average green area was 9.44 ㎡per capita. There were 156 parks in the city.

1.5 Public facilities are developed continuously

In 2003, the city owned 7508 buses and trolleybuses, 16898 cabs and 322 bus lines. The total service length amounted to 7250 kilometers. There were 126 trains served in subway. The trains were operated 521 times everyday. In water supply area, the general daily water supply was 5522 thousands m3. The water supply pipe was 11169 kilometers long. The coverage rate of water supply rose to 97.08%. The average daily water consumption was 503 m3 , The gas production was 13.53 tons per day and the total length of the gas pipe was 2351 kilometers. In 5 districts out of the central city area, gas is supplied by a circular pipe network. The coverage rate of gas supply reached 91.9%.

1.6 Construction and real estate industries are under sustainable development

In 2003, the general output value of the construction industry in Guangzhou was 45.2 billion Yuan. The area under construction was 4168.36 m2. In real estate industry, the complete investment amounted to 41.9 billion Yuan. The area of the housing under construction was 10861.6 thousands m2. The constructed housing area was 11394.7 m2. At the end of last year, the housing area was 228953.1 m2 altogether, out of which there were 1316338 sets of apartments with total area of 137840 thousands m2. The average construction area for the residence was 39.03 m2 with the average 17.23 m2 housing area.

2. major construction projects in 2004

In 2004, Guangzhou will keep the intense investment in city construction. According to the plan, the total investment in 2004 will be 21.6 billion Yuan. The money mostly goes to the railway networks, road networks as well as the water networks and greening networks. The key points of the investment plan are the "double fast" traffic system formed by tracks and highways and the vertical traffic networks. Enlarging the traffic capacity and improving the traffic hubs both will increase the transportation capability. By the end of the first half-year, all the major projects have proceeded successfully.

2.1 Promoting the constructions of major projects

The phaseⅠwork of the New Baiyun International Airport and Guangzhou University Town will be completed soon. Other projects like the Nansha new port, the sight seeing tower of the television broadcasting center and the new railway center are under construction. The new railway center will be located in Zhongcun, Panyu district. The construction will start at the end of this year. It is expected to open in 2007. There will be 10 platforms and 20 lines. By 2020, this new railway station will provide services to more than 80000 thousands passengers everyday.

2.2 Propelling the construction of railways

This year 5.72 billion Yuan has been arranged for the construction of subway. It includes subway line 3 and the railway from Guangzhou to Foshan. Subway line 3 extends 84.5 kilometers, with 29 stations. It will be put into operation in June 2006. Guangzhou segment of the railway from Guangzhou to Foshan is 17.4 kilometers long including 10 stations. It will be put into use in 2007.
l Promoting the construction of roads

This year 7.55 billion yuan will be spent in about 40 important projects, including Xinguang highway, South Freeway, Huanglan Branch Line, eastern extension of new airport highway and the phaseⅢ of Huanan Freeway. Some trunk roads, like Guangfu radial routes, Keyun road, Jinzhou Avenue, Xiagang Avenue, are also on the investment list. The third portion of the investment will go to some modification projects such as Guangyuan western road, Guangzhou Avenue, Huangsha Entrance of the Pearl River tunnel and other city freeways.

2.3 Advancing the construction of environmental protection infrastructures

In 2004, Guangzhou is arranged to invest 2.05 billion Yuan in construction of water processing facilities, including the phaseⅡ& Ⅲ works of Liede Sewage Processing Plant, the phaseⅠworks of Lijiao, the phase Ⅲ works of Datansha sewage Disposal Plant, the phase Ⅰworks of Dashadi and the water processing system in north Baiyun district. Meanwhile, "Guangzhou general water processing scheme" and the water-processing plan for the thousands-residents town are under edit. As for Shahe, Donghao, and Liede, the sewage stopping works and general process works are under-going. According to the environmental protection plan, another 650 million Yuan will be put into the construction of Xingfeng Domestic Garbage Landfill Field and Likeng Resource Power Plant.

2.4 Furthering the project of "greening the hills and lands"

The municipal government will put 600 million Yuan into the 210 greening projects with total area of 1400 hectares, 80 of which are public parks, 9 are projects of "dismantling the dangers and greening", 121 are projects of "dismantling the illegal and greening". The government also drives the greening works in city parks, city green squares, greenbelts, green scenery and the greening along the traffic roads and over-bridges, to improve the ecological environment, propel the environmental construction in social area and lift the living quality.

2.5 Advancing the development of the public facilities

The investment in this field will be 1.02 billion Yuan, 0.71 billion in water supply, 0.31 billion in gas supply. The water supply projects comprise water supply projects in south area, water supply in the University Town, the phaseⅠworks of purified water project and water supply project in the new airport. The gas supply projects include gas supply in the University Town and in the whole city area by building the gas pipe networks. In 2004, the gas will be supplied by the circular gas pipes around the city. The work of harnessing the natural gas has been conducted. 4 new liquefied petroleum gas stations will be built in this year.

2.6 Furthering the development and construction in the new city area

The first part is the development and construction in Jinshazhou. Jinshazhou is located in the joint area between Guangzhou and Nanhai, Foshan, possessing reserved land of 6.72 km2. From this year, guided by the strategy of "instructed by the government’s plan, coordinating the designing plan, unifying land recreation and resettlement, prearranging the municipal facilities, implementing marketing operation, developing step by step, combining the construction and management and budgeting independently’, the construction work is developing at an accelerated rate. In the next 4 years, efforts will put into transfering Jinshazho into a new modern town with the character of South china culture, a place with rational layout, completed facilities, multiple service functions, and comfortable living environment. The development of Nansha district is another part. It’s been put into a "fast track". The major projects include roads and bridges, water supply, gas supply, communication projects as well as the projects of "greening hills and lands". Nansha will become an important industrial port as well as the core area of Guangzhou Port. Following the development of automobile, shipbuilding, petroleum and steel industries and taking the advantage of convenient traffic facilities, Nansha will form some centers of cargo transportation and passenger transportation. Thirdly, the development of eastern area is also on the schedule, including Guangzhou Developing District, Guangzhou Scientific Town and Biological Island. The Guangzhou Development District will be the center of residence, business and the third industries. Guangzhou Scientific Town and Biological Island will be established as the R & D center of the high-tech industries. The Zhujiang New City, circled by the skyscraping twin towers, the Guangzhou Opera House and Guangzhou Juvenile Palace, will be positioned as a central business area and further developed into the center for economy, finance and international trade.

3. The plan of the Asian Games

On July 1 2004, Guangzhou won the right for hosting the 16th Asian Games. For succeeding in this "wholesome and exciting, green and clean" Asian Games, Guangzhou municipal government has drawn "the city construction outlines for 2010 Asian Games". The plan specifies the Asian Games sports gyms, athlete villages, traffic infrastructure systems, telecommunication infrastructure systems, municipal service-facility systems and ecological environment protection and landscape improvement systems. Through the full implementation of this scheme, the city construction in Guangzhou will move forward to a new stage.