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 programme.

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 kilometres by 2010.

Five vertical and seven horizontal arteries will be built across the country by that time, while 90 per cent of urban areas with more than 200,000 residents should be connected to expressways.

In terms of harbour construction, Zhang said his ministry would help Shanghai Port develop into an international maritime transport centre, 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)