Shanghai aiming to build stronger construction sector

Shanghai's municipal government has published a guideline on promoting the integrated reform of the engineering construction sector, which will put it on par with global standards and practices, according to official sources.

The newly released guideline raises 20 key tasks in five categories.

Hu Guangjie, director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said during a news conference on Wednesday that the categories are: promoting the policy system to be more mature and stable, facilitating engineering construction projects' development, raising the quality of government services for engineering construction, enhancing the supervision quality and standards for engineering construction projects, and propelling innovation in construction development.

"The optimization of the business environment was key in protecting market entities, inspiring market vitality, and boosting market confidence during 2022," Hu said.

Against the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the city's construction industry reported positive growth, with a combined output value of 927.39 billion yuan throughout 2022, with major engineering construction investment growing by 7.2 percent year-on-year, to 209.9 billion yuan, Hu said.

That growth is projected to continue during the first quarter of this year, by 43.7 billion yuan of major engineering investment, representing a year-on-year growth of 9.1 percent, he added.