China plans to invest 100 billion yuan (about 14.1 billion U.S. dollars) to improve its rural water supply and raise the coverage of piped water in rural areas to 92 percent of households and businesses in 2024, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.
"[This year] we will strive to complete the investment of 100 billion yuan (about 14.1 billion U.S. dollars) in the construction of rural water supply projects throughout the year. By the end of 2024, the penetration rate of piped water in rural areas nationwide will reach 92 percent," said Xu Dezhi, deputy director of the Department of Rural Water Resources and Hydropower of the Ministry of Water Resources.
The penetration rate of piped water in China's rural areas has increased from 83 percent in 2020 to 90 percent in 2023.
The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Water Resources will also provide 4 billion yuan (about 564 million U.S. dollars) this year in subsidies for the repair and maintenance of existing rural water supply systems.
The ministries will also allocate 3 billion yuan (about 423 million U.S. dollars) to support the construction of small-scale water diversion and transfer projects in 60 rural counties across the country to solve the problems of unstable water supply and insufficient pipeline capacity.
China to invest 100 bln yuan to improve rural water supply in 2024
Chinese stock markets dropped on Monday, as AI and tech stocks continued to see-saw, according to China Global Television Network (CGTN) market analyst Timothy Pope.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 0.59 percent at 3,882.01 points, with the Shenzhen Component Index, which has more exposure to the tech sector, closing 2.13 percent lower at 13,794.29 points.
Trading volumes on the two indices rose with around 2.01 trillion yuan (about 296.28 billion U.S. dollars) traded on Monday, up from 1.88 trillion yuan (about 280 billion U.S. dollars) last Friday.
Traditional sectors such as precious metals, coal mining, and insurance led the gains, while bio-tech stocks were among the top decliners.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 3.21 percent to close at 3,431.89 points on Monday.
The STAR Composite Index, which tracks the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 3.10 percent lower on Monday at 1,896.16 points.
"The A-share markets seem locked in this cycle of rally and rout for those growth stocks, particularly in the AI and adjacent sectors. Today was very much on the rout side so, while the Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.6 percent, we saw the Shenzhen Component down more than 2 percent, the ChiNext board was down 3.2 percent and the STAR 50 down 3.1 percent. Those last three are more exposed to the tech rally than the Shanghai Composite. The big losers as I said were AI hardware companies - Shenzhen Gongjin Electronics was down 10 percent, Zhongji Innolight fell more than 7 percent. But they weren't alone because the other big winning sector of the last few weeks - biotech - was in retreat today as well. Investors were rotating into gold and coal stocks as well, and agricultural stocks extended the food security trade rally that we saw at the end of last week. There were a number of stocks across those sectors, all of those were hitting the upper limits of trade today," said Pope.
Pope said the rest of the week will be dominated by earnings reports from some of China’s biggest companies.
"The rest of the week is going to be mostly about earnings. The end-of-August filing deadline is fast approaching. Friday will be a really big day on the earnings calendar. We've got BYD, PetroChina, Shenhua Energy and a lot of big banks as well. Earnings that we are going to see for ICBC, China Merchants Bank and others will give us an insight into how much pressure the big banks are under with their margins. BYD is also going to be an interesting one in light of the government's anti-involution campaign and its efforts to avert a bit of a race to the bottom in the EV sector. And before we get there, there are Nvidia results in the US on Wednesday which will doubtless impact every stock in the AI space," he said.
Chinese stock markets start week lower on AI volatility: analyst
