China's most populous province Henan will construct 11,500 bus stations in villages this year, in a move to build a public transport network for farmers.

The province in central China earmarked 290 million yuan (US$36.25 million) for the construction of bus stations, according to a provincial government circular available Thursday.

It also called for non-governmental investment in the construction and investors will be permitted to operate the stations after they are put into service.

Henan is a major agricultural base with its grain output accounting for 10 percent of China's total. It has a population of 97 million people.

The province invested 6.1 billion yuan (US$762.5 million) last year in building and renovating 20,000 km of rural highways and repairing cement roads in 5,800 villages.

By the end of last year, the total mileage of the rural highway network reached 125,000 km. Ninety-eight percent of the villages in the province have access to highways

Henan will invest 6.5 billion yuan (US$812.5 million) this year in building highways in its rural areas. Moreover, it plans to build and repair 19,000 km of highways in rural areas and ensure 10,000 villages have access to highways.

(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2006)