China to spend USD 725 billion to expand rural transportation

China will spend a whopping USD 725 billion in major transport projects to provide reliable transportation access in remote areas as part of its three year plan aimed to eradicate poverty in the country by 2020.
A massive spending plan has been outlined to try to give more reliable transportation access to China's more remote areas where over 70 million of the country's poor live.
As part of a new 3-year outline for transportation development, over 300 new projects have been laid out.
Among them are a significant number of projects to connect the country's more isolated, and often impoverished, regions with regional hubs through road and rail, state-run 'China Radio International' reported.

The massive spending plans are part of a pledge to pull everyone in China above the poverty line by 2020, said Zheng Jian with the National Development and Reform Commission.
"We think access to more reliable forms of movement is the linchpin to helping people out of poverty. This is why we've incorporated rural road construction in our new plans, which will link these remote areas to regional hubs in the next 3-years," Zhang said.

China's unique topography, particularly in the south and southwestern parts of the country, has left numerous communities somewhat isolated from the rest of the country.

This has limited their access to government support, leaving them at the bottom of the development curve.
The new transportation spending plan also includes projects to create better links in China's major centres, including inter-city links in the Yangtze and Pearl River Delta regions, as well as throughout the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.
Chinese officials say more than 600 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last three decades.
Despite this, China still has 70.17 million people in the countryside living below the country's poverty line.
Most of the poor live in remote areas and the government has announced plans to lift them above poverty line by 2020.