Xi Jinping’s dream city Xiongan may turn out to be biggest public works project in modern Chinese history
The Xiong’an New Economic Zone may end up being the largest and most expensive urbanisation project in China’s recent history. Financial firm Morgan Stanley estimates that the Xiong’an project could represent an investment of up to 2.4 trillion yuan (US$348 billion) by the time of completion, far superseding Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Games infrastructure investment of 290 billion yuan, China’s largest infrastructure project to date. Xiong’an is expected to expand by 20 times its initial territory in a time frame of 10 years, eventually encompassing about three times the territory of New York City, and ballooning its population to 6.7 million people from the approximately 300,000 people currently living in and around that area. Hebei province, where Xiong’an will be established, is still vastly underdeveloped and much poorer compared to its neighbors Beijing and Tianjin; Xiong’an is expected to bring about much needed redistribution of wealth to the westward poverty-stricken villages in the region. To the article...
