Announcement of China Seeks to Remove Transport Bottlenecks on November 18, 1992

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A. * Telephone: (202) 477-1234 BANK NEWS RELEASE NO. 93/25Asia Contact: P.B. Sison (202)458-0344 External Affairs - EAPVP CHINA SEEKS TO REMOVE TRANSPORT BOTTLENECKS WASHINGTON, November 18--The World Bank has approved two loans totaling $360 million to relieve traffic congestion in Guangdong Province, a leading export center, and in landlocked Henan Province, a transit center of national importance. The highway construction project in Guangdong, which has three of the five special economic zones in southern China, will provide new road networks to serve long-distance traffic, and will improve other heavily travelled national and provincial roads. Rapid development has put considerable pressure on Guangdong's transport system. Provincial gross output value of industry and agriculture has averaged nearly 20 percent per year since 1980, and this pace of growth is likely to continue. Improvement of Henan's road network will focus on relieving congestion in the heavily travelled East-West corridor, linking Henan and other provinces with the new port of Lianyun Gang. The provincial road network will be expanded and rural roads will be improved. Henan is strategically located between the ocean and the coal exporting provinces to its west, and the major north-south and east-west road and rail routes that cross it. The World Bank is lending $240 million for the Guangdong project, and $120 million for the Henan project. Both loans have a maturity of 20 years, including five years of grace, and carry the Bank's standard variable interest rate of 7.60 percent. NOTE: Money figures are expressed in U.S. dollar equivalent.