China will build more roads in rural areas in the next few years
while developing expressways and bigger, better roads in urban
regions, Ministry of Communications officials said.
The ministry and local governments will jointly fund new roads for
villages in eastern parts of China, which are more economically
advanced, and county-level roads in western
regions.
An
extra 50 billion yuan (US$6 billion) directly from the central
government will be used in the road program.
Within the next three years, village-level roads in the east and
county-level roads in the west will be the priority.
All administrative villages will be connected to the nationwide
road network by 2010, with all counties connected to high-standard
roads.
Minister of Communications Zhang Chunxian made the announcement
yesterday at a working conference in Hangzhou.
Zhang said the new measure supported central government policies
which increasingly emphasized the importance of developing rural
areas.
"Paving roads to villages could help farmers transport their
products more easily to nearby markets, and will eventually benefit
rural economies," Zhang said, adding the investment push would be a
long-standing policy.
The construction of arterial roads will also be accelerated in the
next few years. The communications ministry plans to extend the
country's total road length to 2.1-2.3 million kilometers by
2010.
Five vertical and seven horizontal arteries will be built across
the country by that time, while 90 percent of urban areas with more
than 200,000 residents should be connected to expressways.
In
terms of harbor construction, Zhang said his ministry would help
Shanghai Port develop into an international maritime transport
center, while developing Shanghai, Ningbo, Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao
and Shenzhen into major container ports.
Several large oil ports would be built before 2005 in coastal
regions to import fuel and other energy sources.
China's ports have developed quickly in the past few years.
Shanghai and Shenzhen ports are now among the top 10 in the world,
while five other ports have also developed into major international
hubs.
(China Daily February 12, 2003)