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A total of 31 projects in Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province, broke ground on March 17, local media reported.

The projects involve transportation, hydraulic engineering, energy sources, intelligent equipment manufacturing, and core sectors of the digital economy.

An automotive research and development center project of Great Wall Motors Co in Pinghu county, Jiaxing is the most important of the projects.

The R&D center is Great Wall's first to be established outside Baoding, Hebei province, where its headquarters is located. With a total of 6.2 billion yuan ($954.58 million) in investment, the R&D center will consist of more than 20 laboratories, including a vehicle design center and a core auto parts research center.

The R&D center is meant to improve Great Wall's layout in the Yangtze River Delta and bolster its plans to go global.

More than 5,000 researchers, including nearly 1,000 foreign experts, are expected to work in the center, and the company will invest more than 1 billion yuan in the center for vehicle research and development and product verification each year.