Lishui city in East China's Zhejiang province signed up a total of 275 new projects in the first half of the year – a year-on-year increase of 95 percent – and their total investment reached 30.57 billion yuan ($4.71 billion).

Some 74 were major manufacturing projects – a 221 percent surge on last year – and the city added 273.7 hectares of industrial land from January to June, up 80.9 percent year-on-year.

The performance was widely regarded a great head start for the beginning year of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

Since November last year, six major projects have started construction in Lishui. They include the 10.84-billion-yuan Dengta Future Community project – jointly funded by Lishui government and China Railway Construction Cooperation Limited – and CRRC's Lishui Power Valley Future Plant project, which will cost 1.2 billion yuan.

In the first six months, the city officially signed up three manufacturing projects with investment of more than 1 billion yuan each, including an intelligent aviation manufacturing industry base being funded by AviComms Technologies Co Ltd.

In addition, Lishui has reached an agreement with developer Sunac China Holdings Limited to invest 20 billion yuan to build the Lishui Future City, aiming to create a premier cultural and tourism project.

The city reportedly sees securing investment funds as a primary path for introducing more major strategic projects. It has set up a 6-billion-yuan green industry development fund and a 700-million-yuan ecological economy industry fund, among others.