China News Service, Beijing, October 27 (Reporter Zhou Yin) The reporter learned from the Ministry of Transport of China on the 27th that in the first three quarters of this year, fixed asset investment in railways, highways, and waterways completed a year-on-year increase of 1641.2 billion yuan (RMB, the same below). 15.0%, the growth rate accelerated by 6.6 percentage points over the same period last year. In the third quarter, investment in fixed assets in railways, highways and waterways increased by 22.5, significantly higher than the 9.3 per cent in the first half of the year. Experts said that this shows that the transportation industry has achieved results in implementing a series of policies and measures such as stabilizing growth and accelerating the construction of transportation infrastructure. Statistics show that in the first three quarters of this year, railway investment (including capital construction, renovation and purchase of rolling stock) reached 456.3 billion billion yuan, an increase of 23.4 percent over the same period last year, and the growth rate was 14.5 percentage points faster than that in the first half of this year. The investment in highway construction was 1077.1 billion billion yuan, an increase of 14.6, 3.7 percentage points faster than that in the first half of the year. The growth rate of investment in ordinary national and provincial roads and rural roads was about 20%. The investment in water transportation construction was 97.6 billion yuan, down 6.8.

From the perspective of highway and waterway sub-regional investment, the eastern, central and western regions completed investment of 399 billion yuan, 266.8 billion yuan and 519.1 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 9.6 percent, 0.4 percent and 21.2 percent year-on-year, and the investment and growth rate of the western region continued to rank first among all regions. The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Transport pointed out that in the first three quarters, the operation of the transportation economy remained generally stable, but downward pressure still existed. In the first three quarters, railways, highways, and waterways completed a total of 16.41 billion passenger traffic, an increase of 3.2 percent over the same period last year, and the growth rate was slightly lower than in previous years.

passenger structure continues to be optimized. In the first three quarters, railway passenger traffic increased by 10.7, civil aviation passenger traffic increased by 10.1 (January to August), while road passenger traffic increased by 2.2, significantly lower than other modes of transport.

Freight growth stabilized, but downward pressure remained high. In the first three quarters, the total freight volume of railways, highways and waterways was 31.5 billion tons, an increase of 7.7 percent over the same period last year, and the growth rate dropped by 2 to 3 percentage points compared with previous years.

In addition, demand for key goods was sluggish and the growth rate of foreign trade slowed down. From the perspective of the transportation of key materials such as kerosene and mine boxes, which are related to the national economy and people's livelihood, coal transportation has slowed down significantly. From January to August, the volume of railway coal sent increased by only 0.8, and the port coal throughput increased by 2.9, a drop of 6.9 percentage points. The volume of foreign trade entering the port fell by 7.6.

Road and waterway freight prices continue to slump, express business to maintain rapid growth.