The city of Guang'an is inviting private investors to participate in infrastructure projects through public-private partnerships (PPP), said Yan Chunfeng, deputy Party chief of Guang'an in Sichuan province.

Yan made the remarks on the sideline of the third Low-Carbon and Smart City Development International Forum held in the city on Monday.

Guang'an which is best known as the home city of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping has stored 67 PPP projects with an investment of more than 84 billion yuan ($12 billion).

"They cover fields such as urban development, public facilities, water conservancy facilities, affordable housing, ecological improvement and environmental protection," Yan said.

PPP has existed in China since the 1980s. It refers to long-term cooperation between governments and private companies on projects that are mainly funded by the latter and supervised by the former.

Local governments are increasingly turning to PPP to bridge a huge financing shortfall in infrastructure construction.

A less developed city in Sichuan, Guang'an has paid much attention to the construction of the smart city in recent years. Last April, it was chosen as a city for the trial construction of the State-level smart city by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Science and Technology.