China’s highway mileage will surpass that of the US in three years following completion of the ongoing infrastructure construction programme, said Li Shenglin, Minister of Transport. By the end of 2009, China had 65,000km of highways, behind only the US, which has more than 80,000km.

However, Mr Li acknowledged that China still lags behind the US in terms of road quality, management and network construction standards.

China’s fixed-asset investment on transportation development exceeded Rmb1,130bn in 2009, which contributed 0.5 percentage points to GDP growth, Mr Li added.