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China: Building roads to reduce poverty                                                           July 1, 2002
                       There is an old saying in China: If you want to get rich, build a road. The Bank has been helping China
                       build up its network of roads and highways across the country since 1985, and has financed a total of
                       26 highway projects with US$390 million equivalent IDA credit and IBRD loan of US$4.8 billion. These
                       projects have combined to deliver about 3,500 km of expressway and 15,000 km of highway network
                       improvements, plus couple of ten thousand kilometers of rural roads in poverty areas throughout the
                       country. An example of this is the Bank’s involvement in the National Trunk Highway system, financing
                       48 percent of it, and helping to construct 1,150 km of the 2,400 km system through five highway
projects totaling US$1.53 billion in loans. China is scheduled to complete about 17,000 km of Phase I of the National Trunk
system by 2003. Of the 17,000 km of the priority highway system, the Bank has been involved in about 20 percent of them
(about 3,500 km).

Over the next 5-10 years, the Bank's involvement in network density improvement will continue into the secondary and
tertiary level of the highway network, with emphasis on highway network improvement in relatively poor areas of the country
and on maintenance improvement of already invested highway asset and road safety.

Updated: July 2002