The generous investment of South China's Guangdong Province in infrastructure has offered much convenience and transportation fun to its residents.
According to a recent survey, 95.6 percent of the respondents in Guangzhou said it was more convenient and comfortable to travel in the city or to neighboring cities, thanks to an increasing road network, subway network and railway network.
Official figures showed that province has invested an accumulative 400 billion yuan in 10 infrastructure sectors in the fields like transportation, energy and irrigation works since 2003, Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily reported.
The provincial and municipal governments will pump in more funds in the construction of infrastructure-almost 100 billion yuan a year-to lay a sound foundation for the fast economic development, the report said.
Construction of the railway linking Guangzhou and Zhuhai started in late September with a budget of more than 13 billion yuan.
Upon its completion in four years, the 187-kilometer-long railway is expected to ease the busy traffic for cargo and provide a new route of low cost, low pollution, low energy consumption but huge loading capability to the cities along the railway.
Another railway linking Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province, with Shenzhen, a Guangdong city bordering Hong Kong, is scheduled to start the construction by the end of this year.
Dubbed as a "golden passage" that could connect the developed Pearl River Delta area with the Yangtze River Delta area, the railway will significantly reduce the transportation time from Shanghai to Shenzhen from the current 29 hours to about nine hours.
It will also take just three hours from Xiamen to Shenzhen since the speed of train is designed to reach 300 kilometers an hour.
Meanwhile, the highway network has been fast intensified over the past few years, the report said.
The relatively developed city cluster in Pearl River Delta areas has been connected with the less advanced cities in eastern, western and northern areas of Guangdong by highways.
Also 15 highways have been built to facilitate the cities in Guangdong to join hands with those in the neighboring provinces such as Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian.
Because of the upgrade of transportation infrastructure, the province has attracted increasing investments and achieved success in its industrial restructuring.
According to the government's blueprint, it will invest another 1,100 billion yuan during the period from 2006 to 2010 in the 10 sectors including comprehensive transportation, energy and irrigation works.
As a result, it will add another 2,000-kilometer-long highways and 1,100-kilometer-long railways, the report said.
Editor: canton fair |