China will upgrade the expressway in the central province of Hunan which had been worst hit by snowstorm in the past winter, a national legislator said in Beijing on Saturday.

As a parallel route of the expressway linking Beijing with south China city of Zhuhai, the new road connects Hengyang and Linwu cities in Hunan, the province's Communist Party chief Zhang Chunxian said on the sidelines of the country's parliamentary session.

The construction of the new expressway may start within two years, said Zhang, also a deputy to the National People's Congress.

"The site of the possible new expressway is flat and there is stable weather conditions," said the legislator, noting that such a location helps the new road survive future disastrous climate.

Along the Beijing-Zhuhai expressway, the section from Chenzhou in Hunan and Shaoguan in south China's Guangdong Province were blocked for days at the end of January and early February due to unusual freezing weather. Millions of people had been stranded.

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2008)