OnFebruary 28, the Hubei Provincial Development and Reform Commission disclosed thelatest situation of PPP project settlement in Hubei: From 2017 to January 2019,320 PPP projects settled in Hubei, with a total investment of 524.481 billionyuan, ranking 4th and 6th in China in the number and total investment of PPPprojects won.

Interms of area, Wuhan, Jingzhou and Huanggang were the top three cities in thenumber of newly-settled PPP projects, with 42, 32 and 31 respectively; Ezhou,Huanggang and Xiangyang were the top three cities in the total investment, with46.191 billion yuan, 44.026 billion yuan and 35.528 billion yuan respectively.In terms of industry, the top five industries were municipal engineering,environmental protection, transportation, affordable housing and culture &sports.

Privateenterprises took active part in PPP projects. Private enterprises initiated 124projects as consortium initiators or independently as social investors, with atotal investment of 176.894 billion yuan, accounting for 38.75 percent and33.73 percent respectively. On February 19, 18 ministries and commissions,including the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly issued the Action Plan for Stepping up Efforts to Makeup Deficiencies in Social Public Services, Improve Quality and Promote theFormation of a Strong Domestic Market, calling for efforts to makedeficiencies in basic public services in fields such as compulsory education,medical and health service, senior care and sports, encouraging localgovernments to attract more social forces to participate in construction,operation and service in ways such as PPP in accordance with laws andregulations. In accordance with the ImplementationOpinions on Stepping up Efforts to Make up Deficiencies in Infrastructurerecently released by the General Office of the People's Government of HubeiProvince, in fields related to people's livelihood, Hubei will focus onadvancing 90 medical and health service construction projects including the difficultand complicated disease diagnosis and treatment capacity improvement project ofZhongnan Hospital, 22 cultural projects including "Wuhan OperaWharf", 9 sports projects including the venue construction of the HubeiOlympic Sports Center, as well as 15 senior care projects including XianningSenior Care & Rehabilitation Center, to further advance the equalization ofpublic services.