China has received US$16.96 billion in loans from international financial institutions for land and waterway transport projects, said a Chinese communications official at an international meeting in Urumqi.

 

At the central Asia Region Economic Cooperation meeting held last week, Vice Minister of Communications Feng Zhenglin said that the loans have been used to extend expressways by 8,460 km, high-quality roads by 5,952 km and a road network by 10,069 km in China over the past years.

 

Feng said at the meeting held in the capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region that funding from international financial institutions has played an important role in easing China's traffic bottleneck amid the country's fast economic development.

 

Nigel C. Rayner from Asia Development Bank said that international financial institutions will continue to support communications projects in building road corridors linking China's western region and central Asian regions.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2006)