China's Ministry of Communications announced Thursday that the 31-billion-yuan program to build highways connecting in all counties in western China will be finished this year.
Vice-Minister of Communications Hu Xijie made the arrangements for the remaining construction in a videophone conference on national rural road construction that opened Thursday in Beijing.
As a major step to boost China's western economy, China has launched a total of 252 projects to improve the traffic conditions in the western areas. These projects will add 26,098 kilometers of road in the west and connect all counties there with highways.
The total investment of these projects will hit 31 billion yuan (US$3.75 billion), of which 87 percent, or 27.1 billion yuan (US$3.27 billion), has been used so far.
The ministry said that 147 projects were finished and ready for traffic by the end of this April, and the remaining projects, at the cost of 3.9 billion yuan (US$471 million), will be finished by the end of this year.
(Xinhua News Agency May 16, 2003)
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