And the construction of a new railway linking Luoding and Cenxi in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has also been approved by the central authorities and is scheduled to be completed in 2008.

The city has more than 100 kilometres of river dike along the Xijiang River. It includes four large inner river ports of Liudu, Douyang, Ducheng and Nanjiangkou, which have opened inner river water routes to major cities in the Pearl River Delta.

Liudu Port is the second largest inner river port in Guangdong Province. It can handle vessels of more than 2,000 tons.

Meanwhile, Yunfu has abundant mineral resources. The city's iron reserves rank first in Guangdong Province, while its reserves of silica rank second in the country.

The city currently has an installed power generation capacity of 1.15 million kilowatts and plans for two more thermal power stations, which have a total installed capacity of more than 1.1 million kilowatts, are also underway.

Yunfu's stone material industry has had an annual output value of more than 5 billion yuan (US$618.04 million) in recent years.

The city has 13 large-scale stone material production bases and is the biggest stone production base in China.

In addition to the domestic market, the stone materials and related products have also been sold in Hong Kong, Macao and other international markets around the world.

The annual production capacity of cement in Yunfu is more than 7 million tons.

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