Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China plans to build an expressway which serves as an important passage leading to central and western Asia as well as eastern Africa and Europe.

The expressway, totaling 296.5 km in length, links Korlar with Kuqa in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The project is to cost an investment of 3.6 billion yuan (US$444 million). Apart from government allocation and self-raised funds, the region will apply for an estimate US$200 million in loan.

Xinjiang invested 33.4 billion yuan (US$4.02 billion) in road construction from 2001 to 2005, more than double the amount it had injected in the last five decades of the 20th century.

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2005)