China's economy has been booming during the past few years and is still not showing any indications of decrease. One of the key factors regarding the continuing economic growth could be considered the elimination of shortages within the transportation sector. A good functioning transportation system is not only relevant to the public itself, but also to the import and export industry, encouraging investments into so far only slowly developing regions, where land and labour prices are still low due to impeded accessibility. China's population and industrial output is mainly concentrated within the economically higher developed eastern coastal regions, while raw materials, especially coal, have to be transported from the far North-western and North-eastern provinces via railway or inland waterways to the coasts. Not much attention has been paid to road-conditions and access in many rural areas. However China's national roads reached a total of 192 million km in 2005 and 240 billion USD were spent during a five year period from 2000 until 2005. To further improve this situation in 2006 China is aiming to build another 180,000 km of rural highways, hoping to connect all administrative villages in China by highways at the end of 2010.

In order to dissolve presently existing problems, significant capital investments are necessary to modernise and extend not only highway networks, but also railway systems as well as air- and seaports.

Waterways and Ports

Within the Yangtze River corridor from the city of Chongqing to Shanghai there is a real buzz of activity. Due to the massive increase in manufacturing, the government makes efforts to keep infrastructure development ahead of the growth in cargo volume. To improve inland waterways, China will invest around 1.9 billion USD into transportation on the Yangtze River, one of the major traffic routes. The 6,300 km long Yangtze river is one of the largest rivers in China and the third longest in the world, traversing eleven provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, implementing 80 % of the entire inland waterway transportation in China. The opening of the Three Gorges Dam led to efficient river transportation for producers in China's heartland by deepening the river and controlling the flow of water. The second largest river is the Yellow River. It has over 40 tributaries and flows 5,464 km across nine provinces and autonomous regions before reaching the Bohai Sea. The Heilongjiang River situated in Northern China is the boundary river to Russia. Its mainstream within China reaches 3,420 in length. The Songhua River flows 2,308 km and the Liaohe River reaches 1,390 km in length. The largest river in Southern China is the Pearl River flowing 2,214 km, while the Huaihe River reaches 1,000 km. Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal with 1,800 km in length is the earliest and longest artificial waterway in the world, flowing through Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, connecting the Haihe, Yellow, Huaihe, Yangtze and Qiantangjiang rivers. The most important river ports are Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou as well as Harbin. With China's exports rising 28 % during the last year, an increase of goods were shipped through Shanghai, Shenzhen, and other Chinese sea ports. The development of container transportation was intensified by constructing diverse deepwater ports in Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen and Shenzhen. Until the end of 2005 China hosted ten ports, which handled over 100 million tons annually. With 443 million tons being reached at the Shanghai port in 2005, a year-on-year increase of around 24 percent on exports, while imports totalled up around 11 percent, Shanghai claims to be the busiest port regarding cargo handling capacity. Since Shanghai is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, most of the goods that travel from this region for import as well as export go through the Shanghai port. Also with regards to the water depth of the Yangtze as well as the Huangpu River, which is too low to allow third and fourth generation container ships to manoeuvre freely, the 12 billion USD Yangshan Deepwater Container Port project offshore from Shanghai was implemented. The first phase was completed at the end of 2005. The new port will allow container ships with a loading capacity of 5,000 to 6,000 20-foot containers the access to the sea. A 32 km sea-crossing bridge, supporting a six-lane highway, will connect the port to the mainland, where industrial and logistics parks as well as residential complexes are located. Even though this port seems promising with regards to container handling capacity the complete lack of rail link to Yangshan appears to be a problem not yet solved by the responsible officials. Another most important sea port is located in Shenzhen. Shenzhen port ranks as the world's fourth-busiest port after rising trade increased cargo shipment by 19 % up to 16.2 million standard 20-foot containers in 2005. Almost overtaking Hong Kong, where cargo volume rose only by 2 % in 2005.

At the end of 2005 the overall investment in ports reached 16.41 billion USD with China's shipping ports handling a total of 49.1 billion tons of freight increasing by 17.7 % year-on-year.

Railway Network

The railway network in China consists of several main lines, diverse spur lines and local lines which lead from North to South as well as from East to West. Over ten routes are crossing China's borders, connecting to the railway networks in Russia, North Korea as well as Vietnam. The railway network is not spread out evenly, with most of the railway tracks concentrated in North-eastern China as well as in the coastal regions. To improve the current situation, attention should be placed on not only major railway routes but also extending the missing railway transportation system within South-western China.The Chinese railway network is - ahead of India - the longest in the world, covering every single province. However quality is split: whilst some regions achieve international standards and high speed tracks are built, other regions are only equipped with old rolling stock driving over decrepit tracks and some larger cities hardly dispose of any railway connection at all. To exceed transportation capacities within the railway sector, China will repeatedly raise existing speed limits up to 200 km per hour for national railways. The impact will be remarkable on some routes reducing travelling time for example from Beijing to Shanghai from 13.5 to only 7 hours. Another major project finished October 2005 was the Qinghai-Tibet railway connecting Xining in Qinghai Province and Lhasa in Tibet. The tracks cover 1,142 km and were partly built at a 5,000 m altitude. One of a series of new cross-sea transport routes in China is the Yantai-Dalian railway ferry project. The tracks will lead across Bohai Bay covering 147 km, linking Northeast China and the Yangtze River delta region in the south. The railway ferry is expected to start operation in June 2006.

In the time period between 2000 and 2020 China wants to invest 250 billion USD in railway construction.

Road System

The speed of development of the Chinese road system is impressive considering the first expressway on the Chinese mainland was finished in 1988. Today China's road network is second only to America, having reached a total length of nearly 1.7 million km, from which 19,000 km are expressways. Or to phrase it differently, per each 100 km2 of Chinese land comes 17.7 km of road. Major expressways are Shenyang-Dalian, Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu, Guangzhou-Shenzhen, Jinan-Qingdao and Yichang-Huangshi. As mentioned above due to the strong economically developed coastal regions, road-systems in many rural areas have been neglected, causing 10 % of the villages in China missing access to the presently existing road-network. At the beginning of 2005 the China's State Council published a plan appointing the national highway network to include seven highways starting in Beijing, nine highways covering North-South and 18 highways extending from West to East, with a total length of 85,000 km. Constructions of the expressway connecting Nanning, in Gunagxi Province, and highway number 1 in Vietnam were completed in December 2005, being 179.2 km in length. The Sutong Bridge project, once completed in 2008, will become the world's largest fixed-cable bridge, connecting Suzhou and Nantong in Jiangsu Province as well as linking economies of the Yangtze River Delta. The bridge, being 7.6 km in length, is designed as a six-lane expressway and with 62 metres in height enabling fourth and fifth generation container ships to pass beneath at the same time.

Another massive bridge project has started in 2003 and once expected to be finished in 2009, will become China's first trans-oceanic as well as the world's longest bridge. The 36 km bridge over Hangzhou Bay will shorten the travel between Shanghai and Ningbo by 120 km. Currently vehicles travelling between the two Yangtze River Delta cities have to use the already busy Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo expressway.

Air Traffic

A wide range of small, medium as well as large sized airports exist in all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities with the three major airports for regional as well as international traffic being Beijing Capital International Airport, Guangzhou Beiyun International Airport and Shanghai Pudong International Airport. >From all Chinese cities Shanghai is the only city providing two airports: Hongqiao Airport and Pudong International Airport. China's busiest airport is Beijing Capital International Airport, with exceeding annual passenger traffic of 40 million and a total area of currently 25 square kilometres. But in expectation to strengthen the country's logistics competitiveness in Northeast Asia, it will also host the first airport free trade zone, whose completion is planed for 2010. This zone will allow importers to ship various products into China without going through formal customs entry procedures or paying import duties and therefore increase their profits.

One of the world's leading express and logistics company DHL, opened its new air express cargo facility at the Hong Kong International Airport in 2004. The 18,200-square foot facility is capable of handling up to 440 tonnes of air express cargo per day, acting as a logistics gateway to China.

Perspective

To secure China's role as global player the Ministry of Communication of the PRC announced an accelerated program for transportation infrastructure within the next five years covering constructions of roads, highways, inland waterways and shipping ports.

Transportation sector investments are supposed to increase annually by 18.6 % with China spending 800 billion USD. By 2010 the railway network should grow to a total length of 85,000 km, while the road network is suppose to reach a total of 2.3 million km, Chinese ports should provide a total capacity of 4.4 billion tons whereas the number of airports used for public air traffic should not reach less than 180. If the Chinese government manages to accomplish those ambitious but feasible goals the continuing economic growth can be based on a widely spread transportation network.

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