Transportation sector growth picks up speed (2)

Passengers take a picture in front of a bullet train from Beijing to the Xiong'an New Area, Hebei province, in December 2020, when the line started operations. ZOU HONG/CHINA DAILY

From January to August last year, investment in transportation-related fixed assets amounted to 2.34 trillion yuan ($345.4 billion), a rise of 6.6 percent from the same period in 2021, the ministry said. Of that, 1.77 trillion yuan was invested in highway construction, a rise of 9.5 percent.

From January to September last year, construction began on 299 new expressway and national and provincial highway projects. The total length will be 9,645 km, which will cost 882 billion yuan, said Gu Zhifeng, a deputy head of the ministry's highway bureau.

The projects include an underwater tunnel in Jiangsu province and expressways in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

In the first three quarters of last year, 9,756 km of expressways and national and provincial highways were built at a total cost of 557 billion yuan. "The ministry will continue to expand investment in road construction with the key aim of improving the connectivity of the road network," Gu said. He noted that the implementation of major highway projects will facilitate economic stability, boost construction of the modern transportation system and provide more support for high-quality development.

Zhou Rongfeng, another deputy head of the highway bureau, said that to facilitate construction, the ministry has strengthened coordination protocols to better understand the progress of key projects and help solve problems faced during construction.

The measures include: establishing working groups; conducting on-site surveys; implementing online systems to track progress; and setting up project journals that will provide up-to-date information on the progress made.

Meanwhile, more railway lines were built and put into operation last year. A total of 4,100 km of new lines opened to traffic, with high-speed railways accounting for 2,082 km of the figure, said Liu Zhenfang, president of China State Railway Group.

That brought China's railway network to 155,000 km. High-speed railways accounted for 42,000 km, the longest such network in the world.

Meanwhile, the railway sector saw a fixed asset investment of 710.9 billion yuan last year.