(Yicai) Feb. 21 -- Shanghai will soon introduce a new policy to subsidize the interest rates of loans for new infrastructure projects, according to the deputy director of the local branch of the National Development and Reform Commission.

The new policy will further benefit companies by offering larger discounts on interest rates and widening the scope of the subsidies, Chen Guozhong said at a press release event today. Shanghai will continue to lower the loan and financing costs for social entities through interest-allowance policies, driving more social capital investments in new infrastructure projects, Chen noted.

The eastern Chinese city will focus on five aspects in terms of new infrastructures this year -- new network, new computing power, new data, new facility, and new terminals -- to prioritize the advancement of 56 projects, Chen added.

In terms of network infrastructure, Shanghai this year will build 13,000 new fifth-generation network base stations and a batch of industrial internet platforms while expanding the capacity of China's national internet backbone direct connection point in Shanghai, a submarine optical cable with direct connection to the Asia Pacific network, and a cross-Pacific submarine optical cable, according to Chen.

For the high-performance computing power infrastructure field, Shanghai plans to complete the construction of a data center network to directly connect over 70 percent of the city's major computing power resources and upgrade the capacity of the Shanghai Supercomputer Center to enhance its ability to provide high-performance computing power to broad entities.

Moreover, Shanghai intends to set up 20 million urban sensor terminals, 10,000 public-use charging piles, and eight hydrogen-fueling stations, and add photovoltaic power generation terminals with a capacity of one million kilowatts, 160 kilometers of smart roads, and 40 intelligent parking lots.

The city will also improve local schools for nine-year compulsory education to realize an average bandwidth of one megabit per student and teacher, kick off construction of 200 schools with a high informatization level, and upgrade 70 smart nursing homes.

Editor: Futura Costaglione