BEIJING, Oct. 25 -- China invested a record 860.1 billion yuan (about 120 billion U.S. dollars) in the construction of water conservancy facilities in the first nine months of 2023, an official said on Wednesday.

The country broke ground on 24,900 water conservancy projects in the January-September period, up 12.9 percent year on year. Of the total, 35 are major projects, Vice Minister of Water Resources Chen Min told a press conference.

"Water conservancy projects are playing a bigger part in job creation," Chen said. Official data shows that these projects employed 2.21 million people in the first nine months of the year, up 5.7 percent over 2022.

The ministry said it will accelerate water damage repairs at water conservancy facilities for the remainder of the year, and work to ensure that annual investment in the construction of these facilities exceeds last year's figure of 1.09 trillion yuan.