China will rebuild 1.2 million kilometers of rural roads in the coming five years to link almost all towns and administrative villages wherever conditions are available. It also plans to build more than 300,000 km of new rural roads at counties and towns during the period.

1.8 million km of rural roads will be rebuilt in this year in 2006, which is the first year to carry out the plan of building rural roads.

The Ministry of Communications has launched the largest ever project of building rural roads in the 11th Five-year Plan period (2006-2010) since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The country has 630,000 kilometers of rural roads, doubled the total mileage built in the first 53 years of P.R. China. With 278 towns and 36,000 villages connected by roads, highways have covered 99.8 and 94.5 per cent of towns and villages respectively. Buses can reach 98 per cent of towns and 81 per cent of villages.

By People's Daily Online