The head of one of the country's top civil engineering groups has urged closer cooperation between the corporate sector and banks in exploring overseas markets.

Xu Baocheng, general manager of China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group and a deputy to the 12th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, said a lack of future projects for domestic construction companies had led to harsher competition within the industry, putting even great emphasis on winning international projects.

China finished the construction of 85,000 kilometers of highway in 2011, and will have 120,000 kilometers of railway by 2015.