China to Invest 180 Billion Yuan in Road ConstructionIt is learned from the recently concluded national working conference in Beijing on road construction, China will invest 180 billion yuan for road construction in 2000, a year of the most input in this sector since the launch of China's reform and opening program.According to Vice-minister of Communications Li Juchang, China's total mileage of highways exceeded 1.35 km last year, with 73,200 km being newly added. China will continue to step up its efforts to build five national highways running through north and south, and another seven crossing east and west and gradually perfect the key road system. Meanwhile, the Chinese government will also speed up building highways from provincial capital cities to the main county towns and main highways connected with trunk lines of national highways, quicken the building of regional trunk lines, the transit roads in large and medium-sized cities and roads leading into and out of cities; the government will also accelerate special construction of frontier defense highways. Rural highway construction has also been listed as the key points of investment. Efforts will be made to ensure that by the end of this year, 99 percent of the townships and 90 percent of the administrative villages will be accessible to highways. Li disclosed that the general target of highway construction in west China has already been set. The key highways to be built in the western region in the next decade will include the following three-layers: first, eight national trunk highways leading to the west; second, reconstruction of regional road networks and third, ensuring that highways lead to every village. |
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