China will build 5,000 kilometers of expressways in 2007 to complete the trunk lines of its national highway network, said sources with the Ministry of Communications (MOC).

The 36,700-km trunk lines of the network are composed of five north-south highways and seven east-west highways, with 2,385 kilometers to be completed.

One of the major expressways, which is 2,500-km-long, will connect Beijing and Fuzhou, capital of Fujian Province on the west side of the Taiwan Straits.

China currently has 45,400 kilometers of expressways at both national and local levels, the second-largest in the world after the United States.

In 2007, MOC said China would build or upgrade 300,000 kilometers of roads in vast rural countryside.

About 260,000 kilometers of roads was newly built or improved in China's rural areas last year. Now passenger buses have extended to 83 percent of Chinese villages.

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)