February 29, 2008 -- Some 270,000 kilometers of rural highways will be built and upgraded in 2008. By comparison, 423,000 kilometers of countryside highways were built or upgraded in 2007, a record high. According to China's Communication Ministry, as of the end of 2007, 98.54 percent of villages and towns had already been connected by highways.

The 2008 construction plan comprises five north-south highway trunk roads and seven east-west trunk roads and eight inter-provincial roads, reported the state-owned Xinhua newswire. Meanwhile, the central and local governments will continue to allocate funds to support the countryside highway build-up and step up construction quality supervision this year, said Chinese Communications Minister Li Shenglin at the ministry's annual conference last month.