| China plans to dam large-scale building projects |
SHANGHAI, Jan. 12 -- China's government, which spent billions of dollars building the world's largest hydroelectric dam, biggest container port, fastest train and longest bridge, said it now wants to curb large projects to prevent wastage, Bloomberg News reported.
Office towers, museums, exhibition centers and cultural venues exceeding 20,000 square meters in size should only be built if they are "economical, practical and feasible," the Ministry of Construction said in a statement yesterday. The statement is given to provincial governments and local authorities as a directive.
Public projects designed to enhance the image or political credentials of local politicians should be discouraged, while builders must pay attention to environmental impact, efficiency and the allocation of natural resources, the ministry said.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has tightened laws on the approval of land sales, real estate projects, loans and transactions to cap rising housing prices and stem inflation in the world's fourth-largest economy. The government also wants to curb lending so that a sudden drop in property prices won't saddle banks with unpaid loans.
Half of the Chinese economy, which expanded at an average annual rate of 9.7 percent since 1992, has relied on government spending on public works to generate jobs and business contracts.
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