A group of fixed asset investment projects totaling over 200 billion yuan has been approved at an executive meeting by the State Council on November 12.

The projects include the eastern section of the line II in the West-East Natural Gas Pipeline Project to extend the pipeline to Hong Kong SAR (HK), and the nuclear power plant project in Yangjiang, south China'Guangdong province.

The eastern section of the line II in the West-East Natural Gas Pipeline Project, starting from Zhongwei in Ningxia and passing through 11 provinces, regions and cities and ending at Guangzhou and HK, involves a total investment of 93 billion yuan.

The project aims at raising the proportion of clean energy, relieving natural gas supply shortages, and boosting economic and social development in areas along the pipeline.

The trunk pipeline in the project line II is designed to transport around 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. China National Petroleum Corporation will be in charge of the construction.

One of the branch lines will start from Wengyuan in Guangdong and link with Shenzhen and HK. Mainland China and HK will jointly build a natural gas terminal in HK to help HK increase natural gas supply, reduce coal power generation, promote energy conservation and protect the environment.

(People' Daily Online, Nov 14, 2008)