Related officials from the State Council's Office of the Leading Group for Western Region Development recently indicated that China plans to construct four new international strategic overland passages in its southwestern, northwestern, northeastern regions and Yunnan Province during the eleventh five-year plan period and even a longer phase. In the southwest, China will build the South Asia overland passage that extends southwards starting from the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to Yadong County in Tibet and interlinks with India's railway network as a strategic passage to the South Asian Subcontinent.

The other three overland passages include the China-Myanmar-India international passage connecting Yunnan Province, Southeast Asia and South Asia, the Huichun-Dongning railway and the Chunhua outbound railway that joins Russia's railways in the eastern part of northeastern China, and the railway between Xinjiang Autonomous Region and Russia in northwestern China.

As the relation and mutual influence of the Chinese economy and global economy deepen, construction of new international strategic overland passages will facilitate utilization of both domestic and international markets and resources, ensure security of China's national economy and society, solve the problem of transport to expand cooperation in energy and mineral resources between China and neighboring countries, and implement opening strategies to achieve a win-win situation.

Editor: Yan