BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- The rapid development of China's transport sector has cleared the bottlenecks that delayed economic and social development in poor areas and laid a solid foundation for poverty alleviation and rural vitalization, says a white paper released Tuesday.

The country helped farmers improve their lives by optimizing road and railway transport, promoting extensive integration of transport and business in poverty-stricken areas and reinforcing efforts to build a beautiful countryside through rural transport.

The following are major achievements stated in the white paper titled "Sustainable Development of Transport in China" released by the State Council Information Office.

-- From 2012 to 2019, China built or upgraded 2.09 million km of rural roads, including about 1.1 million km in poor areas, bringing the total length of rural roads to 4.2 million km, and connecting another 51,000 administrative villages in poor areas with asphalt and concrete roads.

-- From 2016 to 2019, China built 96,000 km of asphalt and concrete roads in poor areas to reach natural villages with relatively large populations, and implemented a safety program on 458,000 km of rural roads, effectively preventing and reducing accidents.

-- From 2012 to 2019, the number of administrative villages with access to bus services increased by 54,000.

-- To develop logistics in rural areas, China has stepped up the construction of a three-tiered rural logistics network at county, township and village levels, which collected and delivered more than 15 billion parcels in 2019.

-- By the end of 2019, 3.3 trillion yuan (about 504.7 billion U.S. dollars), or 78 percent of total investment in railway infrastructure, has gone into railway projects in the 14 contiguous poverty-stricken areas, old revolutionary base areas, areas with large ethnic minority populations, and border areas. The new railways connect 274 national poor counties, integrating them into a larger "high-speed rail economic circle."

-- In 2019, an average of 2,328 passenger trains ran every day with stops in poor areas, and 594 special tourist trains were arranged to poor areas, which promoted tourism, retail and catering businesses and helped stimulate consumption in areas along the lines.

-- To transport agricultural products from poor areas, railway transport services effectively scheduled freight trains such as point-to-point trains, express container trains and high-speed express trains, which have transported 1.71 billion tonnes of freight since 2018.

-- From 2012 to 2019, China built or upgraded 59,000 km of roads serving resource transport, tourism and business development in poor areas to promote the extensive integration of transport and business in poverty-stricken areas.

-- In 2018, China's postal service companies completed a total of rural e-commerce transactions worth 1.4 trillion yuan.

-- Interconnected roads help improve people's lives and environment in rural areas, enhance public services such as education, health care, and culture, and promote integrated urban-rural development.