The Nangang district of the city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province signed over 29 billion yuan ($4.54 billion) in contracts on Aug 31, a local news portal has reported, noting that they cover a wide range of public transportation, commerce, the Internet, healthcare, logistics, e-commerce, environmental protection and energy conservation.

The 2nd Phase of the city’s subway Line 3 accounted for the largest part of that, at 10.3 billion yuan, for the city’s first underground loop line, which runs 37 kilometers, with 34 stations, with the 2nd phase covering 32 kilometers, and 29 stations. The work is expected to start later this year and to be completed in 2022.

The city will also build a production base for e-vehicles with help from a Beijing company and an e-vehicle manufacturer from Changzhou, Jiangsu province, at a cost of 1.8 billion yuan, to produce 10,000 - 30,000 cars and charging posts for use in temperatures as low as -40 C to deal with adverse weather.

Not to be left out, some famous brands from South Korea, such as CGV, the country’s largest multiplex cinema chain, and Lotte Mart, one of its leading grocers, will build an indoor playground for children, a gourmet market, and a plastic surgery hospital for 3 billion yuan. The South Korea City Complex is expected to hold a shopping mall for Korean products, a Sino-Korean cultural communications center, a vocational school, and a hotel and apartments with South Korean characteristics, with work on it set to begin soon. The developer, Heilongjiang’s Benma Group, will also cooperate with South Korea’s giant Sumsung Electronics to build smart homes with Samsung’s latest information technology on the Internet of Things.

Most of the 11 projects are closely related to people’s life, with the emphasis on a healthy lifestyle, according to Han Liguo, head of the district’s investment promotion bureau, so there will be a green food center, at a cost of 3 billion yuan, with flowers and tropical fruit from SE Asia.

There will be facilities for e-commerce businesses and HQ to attract more people to start a business, resulting in around 60,000 jobs, as well as a nursing home project at a cost of 4-billion yuan to provide all types of facilities for senior citizens, including medical care, training for nursing services, public welfare, and rental apartments for the aged, in a park that is expected to be the largest of its kind in NE China.

Harbin’s Nangang district is in 11th place among China’s Top 100 districts in small-to-mid-sized cities for investment potential, according to an annual report.