Guangzhou Municipal Government will invest 6.7 billion yuan (US$827 million) in building two highways in the northern part of the city.

One of the highways will link Liangkou in Conghua and Dongming in Tianhe, and will cost 1.8 billion yuan. It will also be connected with a highway to Jiangxi Province.

The other highway, linking Guangzhou and Heyuan, will cost 4.9 billion yuan. Both will begin construction in 2006.

The mountainous northern area in Guangzhou accounts for 25.4 percent of the city's total area with about 10.6 percent of the city's population. However, the area's industrial and agriculture's total products accounted for only 1 percent of the city's produts last year.

The government said it would invest more in infrastructure and education in the area. It said all the township hospital would be upgraded by the end of 2007.

The government will invest 1.89 million yuan to improve facilities in village-level clinics to make sure that every farmer in the area has access to a doctor within a 30 minutes' walk.

Editor: Yan