HOHHOT, March 18 (Xinhua) -- North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will invest 101 billion yuan(15 billion U.S. dollars) in new roads in 2017, a year-on-year increase of 12 percent, regional transportation department said Friday.

A total of 20,000 km of road, including 3,000 km of expressways, will be built this year, according to Miao Yinzhu, director of the department.

By 2020, there is scheduled to be 10,000 km of trunk highways for tourism in the region.

Inner Mongolia will speed up the construction of roads to the port cities of Manzhouli and Erenhot to improve connectivity with Russia and Mongolia.