Shanghai Southern Ring Road Expressway Construction and Development Co. Ltd. yesterday signed a con-tract with the Shanghai Municipal Engineering Administration Bureau to build the southern portion of the Suburban Ring Road.

Although bureau officials have not set a date to begin construction of the expressway, the road is expected to be open for traffic before July 2005. The company will have to raise 3 billion yuan (US$361 million) before it begins work.

The bureau said it would also be the first time that insurance companies will act as guarantors for bank loans.

The construction company is a joint venture between Shanghai Jinshan Industrial Investment and Develop-ment Co. Ltd., Shanghai State-owned Assets Operation Co. Ltd., and two Beijing-based investment companies.

After construction is complete, the expressway company will operate the expressway for the next 25 years, collecting tolls before the highway is returned to the city government, Jiang Lihua, a bureau spokeswoman, said.

Construction of the 67-kilometer portion of the Ring Road will begin from Nanqiao Township in rural Fengxian District and head westwards to Fengjing Township in Jinshan District in southern Shanghai. It will then join up with the Shanghai-Hangzhou Expressway, which ends near Hangzhou Bay.

The bureau also plans to seek out investors in the coming a few months for a 1.8-billion-yuan project - another 53-kilometer-long highway on the southeastern portion of the Suburban Ring Road.

Work on the 38.77-kilometer-long northern portion of the Ring Road began in December with an investment of 2 billion yuan. The area covers mostly the Jiading and Baoshan districts.

The Suburban Ring Road covers 187 kilometers and connects eight local rural districts of Shanghai.

( China Daily April 12, 2002)