China has invested over 150 billion yuan (about 18.1 billion US dollars) in highway construction during January-October this year, using 87 percent of the projected annual volume of 180 billion yuan and increasing by 6.2 percent over the same period of 1998.

Li Juchang, vice minister of Communications, released the statistics at a recent working conference. He said that China's highway construction has remained on a sound track in 1999, thanks to the country's active fiscal policy which tends to emphasize infrastructure construction.

Official figures show that investment in highway construction in the first half of this year reached 68 billion yuan, accounting for 37.9 percent of the yearly budget, and hit 62.7 billion yuan in the third quarter, or 34.8 percent of the estimated amount.

Li also disclosed that the total length of highways in operation is expected to exceed 1.3 million kilometers by the end of this year, with 35,000-km of new highways added.

Meanwhile, the total length of expressways will also extend to 11,000 kilometers, with over 2,000-km expressways built this year. (Xinhua)