BEIJING - China's top economic planner has approved a railway project linking Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province and Huangshan in Anhui province, with a total investment of 48.57 billion yuan ($7.47 billion).

Spanning 286 kilometers, the project will have nine stops, with a maximum speed at 350 kilometers per hour, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

The four-year project is expected to facilitate development along the Yangtze river economic belt, the NDRC said.

China spent 801 billion yuan on railway projects and put 3,038 km of new tracks into operation in 2017, meeting its annual targets of 800 billion yuan of investment and 2,100 km of new lines, according to the China Railway Corporation.

By the end of 2017, total mileage of China's railways in operation reached 127,000 km. Among the total, high-speed railways rose to 25,000 km from 22,000 km at the end of 2016.

The growth of railway construction projects came at a time when the country is enduring continuous deceleration in growth of fixed-asset investment.

In the first 11 months of 2017, fixed-asset investment grew 7.2 percent year-on-year, down from 8.3 percent during the same period in 2016.