Governor Wang Jinshan (first left) and Director Song Weiping (center) on an inspection tour of the rural road project in Jinzhai County.	Anqing Yangtze River Highway Bridge.	Song Weiping on a working trip in Fengtai County.

COMUNICATIONS infrastructure in Anhui Province has improved by leaps and bounds. In just a few years, the province has established a modern communications network - including trunk railways, expressways, navigable rivers and canals and hub airports - that is on a par with the best in the country.

Director of the Anhui Provincial Communications Department Song Weiping says, “To take the lead in the ‘Central China Resurrection' development strategy, Anhui must first branch out to the east and link up with the Yangtze River Delta.”

Expressways

Not long ago, Anhui had few modern roads and bridges running over its numerous mountains and rivers. But in the 1980s, when some areas were still debating whether or not China should construct a national expressway network, Anhui commenced construction of its first expressway from the provincial capital of Hefei to Nanjing, capital of the neighboring Jiangsu Province. The project was completed in 1991, opening up Anhui's first fast lane to the eastern coastal provinces.

In the years that followed, Anhui built the Gaohe-Jiezidun, the Hefei-Chaohu-Wuhu, the Hefei-Anqing, and the Hefei-Xuzhou expressways, which formed the skeleton of the province's crisscross expressway network. By the time the northern section of the Hefei-Xuzhou Expressway was opened in December 2003, Anhui had realized its targets of slashing round-trip journey times between its major cities to a day, and building 1,000 kilometers of expressways.

But that was not the end of the road for expressway projects. In June 2004, construction began on the Anhui section (from Tongling to Tangkou) of the ambitious Beijing-Taipei Expressway project, as well as the Tianjin-Shanwei Highway. These were followed by the Riverine Expressway, a section of the State 7918 Plan's Shanghai-Chongqing Highway. And in June 2006, Anhui started to build the 150-km Lu'an-Qianshan Expressway - the first that passes the Dabie Mountains Old Revolutionary Base. The latter is the most costly and challenging expressway project that the province has ever undertaken.

The latest plans include the following targets: to increase the density, connectivity, capacity and road speed of Anhui's radial expressway network; to accelerate eastward development and seamlessly integrate with the Yangtze River Delta and six neighboring provincial capitals and 19 prefecture-level cities; and to propel the construction of links between Hefei and every city in the province with an important port, railway, airport or tourist area.

The Yangtze River flows 343 kilometers through Anhui, but until recently, there was no bridge in the entire province that spanned it. To travel from Hefei in the province's center down south to Huangshan, one had to cross the river by ferry at Anqing or Wuhu, two cities on the southern bank of the Yangtze. The 150-km distance would take an entire day to cover.

Three new bridges now span the Yangtze River at Tongling, Wuhu and Anqing, and four more will be built within five years. Traveling by road today, one can cover the province from north to south within six hours, and from east to west within three. “Anhui seems to have shrunk,” says truck driver Chen. With better roads, he and other long-distance drivers now enjoy improved transport efficiency - and more money in their pockets.

As the wheels spin faster along the ever-expanding network, new expressway operation modes and management concepts have also rolled into the province. The Tongling-Tangkou Expressway stands out as a good example. As Anhui's second World Bank-funded project and its first mountain expressway, strict requirements were set covering technology, management and environmental protection. As soon as the road's construction was approved, a set of standard operating procedures was established regarding its engineering, bidding rules and the relocation of local residents. It was from the very beginning labeled as the “Ecologically Sound and Environmentally Friendly Road” to highlight the importance of maintaining the natural and cultural environment of the areas along its way. And it was designed and constructed accordingly. The Tongling section highlights the bronze culture, the Chizhou section the Buddhist culture, and the Huangshan section the Huizhou culture. As Song Weiping put it, “Harmonious transportation should incorporate both ecological and cultural factors.”

Mountain Roads

Anhui is a mountainous agricultural province. More than 40 of its rural counties are located in the Dabie and southern Anhui mountains. In the past, isolation and inaccessibility severely hindered local development, and the widely quoted slogan, “Road Construction Leads to Prosperity” made little sense to the villagers' ears.

But at the beginning of this year, the ambitious “Accessibility to Every Village” project was unveiled in Anhui. According to the plan, Anhui will invest at least RMB 15 billion over five years in building 60,000 kilometers of cement/asphalt village roads, with 1,000 bus stations and 11,000 bus stops, as well as 500 bridges to replace the rusting ferries. Director Song Weiping is well aware of the tremendous difficulties that lie in the financing, planning, management, quality control and maintenance of rural projects like these, as they are small in scale, scattered across an extensive area, and involve a large amount of local effort and initiative. That's why the department decided in 2005 to launch pilot projects in ten counties, including Fengtai, Wuwei and Changfeng, while proceeding with the formulation of larger plans and policies and using the pilots' experience as a reference.

To prevent the kind of false data that proved problematic in previous rural road building projects, the provincial communications department conducted advance surveying and planning using GPS satellite technology. It established a database and electronic map of the rural road conditions throughout the province.

The five-year, RMB 15 billion rural road project will receive a state subsidy of RMB 4.5 billion. What's more, the provincial government has set up a Rural Road Investment Center, which has received a loan worth RMB 4 billion from the National Development Bank. Meanwhile, it has launched a fund raising campaign among municipal and county-level governments.

These local governments know it won't be easy to drum up the funds for the project. To ensure the funds are used properly, a strict system has been established covering fund raising, allocation, management, and default penalties. The Rural Road Construction Leading Group is closely supervising the project. It has already issued more than 10 documents, such as the Interim Measures on the Management of the County and Township Road Funds of Anhui Province and the Rural Road Funds Auditing Methods of Anhui Province, in an effort to regulate operations and to solve serious problems. The group conducts both overt and covert and regular and irregular inspections to make sure the project is implemented smoothly.

Anhui utilized the first RMB 1.88 billion in the first six months of this year. Its effects are already apparent. One beaming farmer from Wushan Town in Changfeng County says, “Thanks to the new rural road, traders come to buy my watermelons, strawberries and vegetables. They can now get to the market quickly, and sell for a good price.

Fengtai Case Study

Fengtai County is the only riverside pilot county on the northern bank of the Huaihe River. It used to suffer frequent floods. But a recent river-harnessing project there has helped the local economy to flourish, and it now ranks among the top 10 counties in terms of economic growth.

In July 2005, Fengtai went ahead with its pilot project. Barely a year later, 60 percent of its villages had cement roads. The second phase of construction was completed in October.

Director Li Ping of the Fengtai County Communications Department says that Fengtai's many rivers and lakes mean asphalt roads are less durable in that area. The county therefore decided to invest in the more expensive cement roads to connect its 236 villages to either provincial- or county-standard roads. The hard concrete surface is 3.5 meters wide and 18 centimeters thick, with a 0.75-meter shoulder on each side. The project's cost was estimated at RMB 80 million, or RMB 190,000 per kilometer. So apart from the state subsidy of RMB 100,000 per kilometer, the county had to raise the remaining RMB 90,000. This it did through county donations and various private fund raising campaigns.

To make sure the roads were of a high quality, each village selected two to three volunteer supervisors. They were all trained up and issued with a certificate qualifying them to perform their supervision duties. Local communications officials kept in contact with these grass-roots supervisors. Director Song Weiping held meetings with them on his four inspection trips to the county, as did the provincial Vice Governor Huang Haisong.

Waterways

Anhui has enviable water transportation resources. Both the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers run through the province, and lying in between them is the Chaohu Lake, one of the five largest freshwater lakes in China. Song Weiping says Anhui ranks eighth nationwide in terms of navigable river mileage, and fifth in terms of the mileage of Class 4 waterways or higher.

The province has 17 inland harbors with a total handling capacity of 200 million tons, ranking third in the country. In 2005 it accomplished a freight throughput of 146 million tons, more than that of the other three riverine provinces in central China. Many of these harbors cater to specific industries, such as coal (Yuxikou), petrochemical products (Anqing), cement (Hailuo), steel (Ma'anshan), metal ore (Tongling), and containers (Zhujiaqiao). Foreign ships can dock at any of the port cities along the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers in Anhui.

Ma'anshan and Wuhu are two large port cities of Anhui. The Ma'anshan Harbor was built in 1958 and serves the local iron, steel, power and building materials industries. The Ma'anshan Steelworks has a direct railway line to the harbor. Wuhu, meanwhile, has been around since the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). Since its ancient, humble beginnings, it has become Anhui's largest port on the Yangtze River. “Both of these port cities will lead the provincial communications department's “Riverine Transport Leapfrog Project,” says Song Weiping. “Anhui will become a riverine transport giant in China.”