Emerging industries to the fore

Emergingindustries will continue to play an important role in driving China's economy.

The NationalDevelopment and Reform Commission underlined the policy on Thursday when it announcedplans to promote new projects involving emerging industries, such asInternet-related sectors, and high-tech manufacturing and production.

By backing theseindustries, the NDRC hopes private enterprises will invest in emergingindustries, which in turn will help stimulate economic growth.

Last year, theNDRC launched seven projects, which included oil and gas pipelines, ecologicalprotection, clean energy, water conservation, transportation, pension servicesand mining.

In June, urbanrail development and modern logistics were added to the list of industriesbeing promoted by the NDRC.

By the end oflast month, major projects launched by the government had attracted investmentof more than 3.3 trillion yuan ($531 billion), according to Zhao Chenxin,deputy director-general of the department of policy studies at the NDRC.

Much of thatinvestment came from private companies. "Construction involving 228projects has already started," Zhao said.

Qi Chengyuan,director-general of the high-tech department of the NDRC, said emergingindustries will become increasingly important in boosting economic growth inthe country. "In promoting emerging industries, the government's emphasisshould be on creating a fair market environment," Qi said.

In the past fivemonths, profit growth from emerging industries with an annual income of morethan 5 million yuan was 20 percent. This was much higher than the averagenational level.

In terms ofcompetitive manufacturing, the country will step up efforts in promoting industrialrobots, renewable energy vehicles, high-end ocean engineering equipment andmodern agricultural machinery as well as medical equipment.

Zhang Hanya,president of the Investment Association of China, said these new packages willhelp stimulate the economy in the second half of the year.