In response to the central government's plan to invest 100 billion yuan in rural highway construction during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10), Henan Province decided to seize the opportunity to improve its transportation infrastructure.

A winding highway in Yunchonglu mountain area of Qinyang, Henan Province

As a major agricultural province, Henan is determined to connect each of its villages with cement or asphalt highways by the end of this year, according to the provincial communications bureau.

"We shall spare no efforts to strengthen infrastructure construction in rural areas and achieve the goal of connecting every village with asphalt highways as early as possible," Xu Guangchun, secretary of the Henan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, said at a conference in October last year.

Achievements

Located in Central China, Henan Province has an area of 167,000 square kilometers and a population of 96.67 million. It contains 18 prefecture-level cities, 157 counties, 2,162 townships and 48,569 villages.

In 2006, the province made remarkable progress in rural highway construction, achieving a good start for the 11th Five-Year Plan.

Last year, the province built or upgraded 31,000 kilometers of rural highway, exceeding the construction target by 63 percent.

With an investment of 6.88 billion yuan, these newly built highways include 15,000 villages in the province's highway network.

Although the province has achieved fruitful results in rural highway construction, there is still a long way to go to achieve the final goal of a developed rural highway network.

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