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)