BEIJING, April 7 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's key business news from the past week:

LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS

The 19th International Conference & Exhibition on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was held in Shanghai from Monday to Friday.

First held in 1968, the LNG conference, is a triennial event for the industry. This year marks the first time that the conference was held in China, the world's fastest growing LNG market.

According to the three-year action plan on air pollution control released in 2018, China will boost the share of natural gas in its total primary energy consumption to 10 percent by 2020 from currently less than 8 percent.

Industry experts attending the conference saw China's reforms on natural gas industry as tremendous opportunities for both Chinese and foreign companies.

MOBILE PAYMENT IN RURAL CHINA

Mobile payment is gaining steam in China's rural areas, strengthening its dominant position in online payment in rural areas, according to the country's central bank.

A total of 274.883 billion mobile payment transactions were made via non-banking payment platforms in 2018, worth 74.42 trillion yuan (11.08 trillion U.S. dollars), up 112.25 percent and 73.48 percent respectively, data from the People's Bank of China showed.

Mobile payment dominates the online payment market in rural areas, with total transaction deals and volume making up nearly 95 percent and 97 percent of the online payment totals in rural areas.

FIRST BRIDGE WITH 5G NETWORK

The Nansha Bridge opened Tuesday in the southern province of Guangdong, becoming China's first bridge with a 5G network, the country's state-asset regulator said Wednesday.

As the latest major transport project in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the 12.89-km bridge began to provide 4G and 5G services on the day it opened, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

To ensure smooth network connectivity, telecommunication base stations were launched on the towers and lamp posts of the bridge, an innovative technique.

TRANSPORT INVESTMENT

China's fixed-asset investment (FAI) in transport saw rapid expansion in the first two months of this year, jumping 8 percent year on year to 271.7 billion yuan (about 40.44 billion U.S. dollars), according to the Ministry of Transport.

Road construction took the lion's share of the FAI with an inflow of 191.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 4.9 percent, while waterways recorded the fastest growth rate of 27.2 percent.

China will expand infrastructure investment in 2019, including 800 billion yuan in railway construction and 1.8 trillion yuan in road construction and waterway projects, according to a government work report.