On February 23, the State Information Office held a press conference on the theme of "Opening Remarks of Authoritative Departments". Minister of Transport Li Xiaopeng and Vice Minister Xu Chengguang introduced relevant information on "Striving to speed up the building of China's powerful transport country and becoming the pioneer of China's modernization". Li Xiaopeng said the data showed that transport logistics operations are fully back to normal.

Li said that this year, the Ministry of Transport will compile and implement the Five-Year Action Plan (2023-2027) to speed up the building of China's powerful transport industry. It will also do a good job in the prevention and control of the epidemic in a scientific and accurate way. It will do its best to ensure access and smooth transportation, continue to pay close attention to work safety, and accelerate the construction of the national comprehensive three-dimensional transport network. We will strive to increase effective investment, improve transport services and security, and promote structural adjustment and optimization of transport and clean and low-carbon transformation.

Will accelerate this year

Construction of key transportation projects

Transport infrastructure is characterized by large investment scale, quick implementation, good overall benefits and strong driving effect. It is an important measure to ensure people's livelihood and promote development, as well as an important area to stabilize growth and create more jobs. Li Xiaopeng said the country's fixed asset investment in transport completed 3.8 trillion yuan in 2022, up 6 percent year on year, contributing to economic development. This year, we will continue to maintain a high level of fixed asset investment in transport and continue to contribute to economic development.

"Last year, it was not easy for fixed asset investment in transportation to maintain a growth rate of more than 6 percent. It contributed to stabilizing the macroeconomic market and keeping the economy operating within a reasonable range." Xu Chengguang introduced that the Ministry of Transport has mainly done the following three aspects of work:

First, we will strengthen policy support. In 2022, the Ministry of Transport formulated and issued a series of policy documents on expanding effective investment in transport, strengthened project reserve and preliminary work, and worked with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Natural Resources and other relevant departments to solve the problem of ensuring factors such as sea environmental impact assessment for land use in transport projects, thus creating a favorable policy environment for expanding effective investment.

Second, we will intensify efforts to promote projects. With a focus on networking, reinforcing networks, and strengthening chains, we carried out 11 major projects in an orderly manner, including the project to connect major national expressways, and accelerated the construction of the first batch of 16 major projects to make China a transportation power. The spatial structure of the "six axes, seven corridors, and eight corridors" national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network was basically formed.

Third, multi-party financing for construction. We will give full play to the leading role of central funding. In 2022, the central government allocated more than 340 billion yuan in special funds for highway and waterway construction. We will actively strive for local government special bonds to be used in transport projects, strengthen cooperation with financial institutions, and give full play to the role of policy-oriented development financial instruments and supporting credit and financing to support transport projects. We will promote the public-private partnership (PPP) model, prudently carry out trials of infrastructure real estate investment trusts (REITs), and actively attract private capital to participate in transport development.

Xu Chengguang said the Ministry of Transport will actively expand effective investment in transport in 2023 to provide strong support for the overall economic turnaround.

"First, we will continue to speed up the construction of key transport projects, focusing on networking, reinforcing networks and strengthening chains. Second, we will strengthen financial and policy support. Effectively drive the investment of the whole society through government investment and policy incentives; Third, we will strengthen the project preliminary work and project reserve, and continue to lay a solid foundation for expanding effective investment in transportation." "Xu Chengguang said.

We will speed up the building of China into a transportation powerhouse

We will focus on ten areas of work

In recent years, the CPC Central Committee and The State Council have successively issued the Outline of Building a Powerful Transport Country and the Outline of National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transport Network Planning, further improving the top-level design of building a powerful transport country. The Ministry of Transport has earnestly implemented the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council, and made continuous progress in all its work, achieving a good start.

Li said that in the five years from 2018 to 2022 since the 19th CPC National Congress, a total of more than 17 trillion yuan has been invested in fixed assets in the transport system, and the world's largest high-speed rail network, the world's largest highway network and world-class port cluster have been built.

"Over the past five years, the overall strength of transport has improved by a large amount, and some areas of advantage have ranked among the top in the world, providing a strong guarantee for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and a modern socialist country." Li Xiaopeng said that in the next step, the Ministry of Transport will formulate and implement the Action Plan, focusing on ten aspects of work:

First, strengthen the development of modern infrastructure, optimize the layout, structure and functions, and do a good job in system integration; The second is to improve the quality of transport services, and strive to ensure that people enjoy the travel, the flow of goods; Third, we will serve rural revitalization and coordinated development among regions, and promote the integrated development of urban and rural transport. Fourth, deepen the innovation drive of transportation technology, and promote digitalization, intellectualization and networking; Fifth, promote green and low-carbon transport transformation, optimize and adjust the structure, and promote clean and low-carbon development; Sixth, strengthen production safety, strengthen industrial supervision, improve safety guarantee in key areas; Seventh, enhance the level of openness and cooperation in transport, strengthen connectivity, promote global transport cooperation, and promote high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative; Eighth, strengthen the construction of personnel; Ninth, improve management capacity, improve laws and regulations, strengthen comprehensive supervision, build a unified and open transport market, and optimize the business environment; Ten is to strengthen the Party's leadership over the transport work, strengthen the transport front party building.