Guangdong will soon start the construction of its second highway linking its northeast neighbor Jiangxi Province in East China, opening the best economic route for East China to enter the Pearl River Delta via northern Guangdong.

With an investment of 7 billion yuan ($909 million), the construction will start next month and the highway is expected to open to traffic in 2009, according to Guangdong provincial highway bureau.

The highway starts from Oushan, Qujiang District of Shaoguan in the northern part of the province. It links with the Shaogan Highway (Shaoguan-Jiangxi) in the east which is already under construction and with the Jingzhu Highway (Beijing-Zhuhai) in the west. The six-lane highway will be 33.5 meters wide and 130 kilometers long with a designed speed of 100 kmh.

The first highway linking Jiangxi is Yuegan Highway (Guangdong-Jiangxi) that exits Guangdong in the northeast part of the province.

According to Liu Heping, director of the provincial highway bureau, the highway is designed to be all-sealed with grade separation and entry-and-exit control. It will connect Qujiang District of Shaoguan, Renhua County, Shixing County and the city of Nanxiong.

Liu, who inspected the Meishao Tunnel that started construction last October, said that he hopes the highway will be open to traffic in February 2009. The tunnel is a key project of the highway. Upon completion, the highway will help ease the traffic bottleneck among Chenzhou in Hunan Province, Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province and Shaoguan in Guangdong Province.

The project is the first commercial highway in the province, according to Liu. Guangdong provincial highway bureau provides 80 percent of the investment while Shaoguan city government shoulders the rest 20 percent.

Shaogan Highway is an important part of the highway network in plan for Guangdong Province. The accelerated construction of the project will help link with Jingzhu Highway, Yuegan Highway and other three trunk roads connecting Rucheng in Hunan Province and Yantian Port of Shenzhen.

Currently, Guangdong has six highways linking with its neighboring provinces. It will build another 11 highways by 2010, according to Liu. Among them, three highways will link the Pearl River Delta with Hunan Province in the north, two will connect Jiangxi Province in northeast.

In addition, the State project Daguang Highway (Daqing-Guangzhou) will also link the province with Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province.

Editor: Yan