Sansha to invest heavily in transportation, construction

Sansha, China's southernmost island city that administers vast island groups and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea, will invest heavily in the transportation sector and infrastructure construction.

The city will open scheduled commercial flights at airports at Yongxing Island, the seat of the city government, and other islands now mainly used by People's Liberation Army units stationed there, Vice-Mayor Feng Wenhai said on Thursday as he delivered the government work report to the annual lawmakers' meeting.

Feng said the city government will plan for the building of three ships that will be used to transport supplies to islands under Sansha's jurisdiction. He added Sansha will continue to construct piers for all of its inhabited islands and reefs and will start building small wharves for uninhabited islets.

Currently, the transportation of cargo and personnel between Sansha and the outside world relies on the Sansha No 1, a car and passenger ferry that makes a round trip to Haikou, capital of Hainan province, once a week. The ship started operation in January last year and has since then helped residents make more than 30,000 trips and transported 9,600 metric tons of drinking water and 20,000 tons of goods, according to local media.

In addition to transport platforms, the government will finish the laying of an optical fiber cable network this year to help telecommunications while all inhabited islands and reefs will be covered with Wi-Fi service before the end of 2016, according to Feng.

The vice-mayor said the city government will encourage private enterprise to take part in infrastructure construction projects. Sansha currently has 119 registered enterprises and 110 individual businesses that paid more than 700 million yuan ($107 million) in taxes last year, Feng said.

To enhance local law enforcement, Sansha will erect a detention center in 2016 and will speed up the construction of courts, prosecutors' offices and public security bureaus, he said, adding that a new police patrol ship will be constructed this year.

Sansha was established in July 2012 to administer more than 200 islets, sandbanks and reefs in Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha islands and the two million square kilometers of surrounding waters. It is under the jurisdiction of Hainan, China's southernmost province.

In mid-December, Sansha opened its first school, the Yongxing School. The school is on Yongxing Island and includes a primary school, kindergarten and vocational education center. It cost more than 36 million yuan.

Contact the writers at zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn