The Ministry of Communications, which
is responsible for highway and inland waterway transport in China,
issued its first regional transportation blueprint in Beijing
Monday.
The blueprint, for the first time in
the country, eliminates provincial and trade barriers and provides
detailed plans for a transportation network. According to the
Yangtze River Delta blueprint, by 2020 the region will have 300,000
kilometers of highways and 4,200 kilometers of freshwater
navigation channels.
The ministry's plan is to build "a
comprehensive transportation hub in this region so as to foster an
orderly and energetic market."
With coastal and inland waterway
economic belts, and international and domestic logistics
overlapping in the region, highways and waterways provide strong
support to economic development, said Ren Jianhua, deputy director
of the ministry's Comprehensive Planning Department.
According to the blueprint, the
Shanghai international shipping center and container transportation
system will be formed by 2020, with ports such as Ningbo and Suzhou
serving as auxiliaries. A major navigation channel will also be
formed with the Yangtze River and Beijing-Hangzhou Canal at the
core.
Ren said the ministry hopes that
regional transportation integration will enhance regional economic
integration.
According to a New York
Times article by Joseph Kahn published last week, the total
length of China's highway system is expected to overtake that of
the US -- now the largest in the world -- by 2020. The ongoing
road-building effort in China is matched only by that of the United
States in the 1950s.
(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn
March 29, 2005)