The mileage of rural roads across China grew to a total of 4.6 million km by the end of 2023, reflecting the country's notable achievements in the construction of rural roads, said a white paper released by China's State Council Information Office on Friday.
The white paper, titled "China's Rural Roads in the New Era," said that by the end of 2023, the total length of rural roads reached 4.6 million km, an increase of 21.7 percent over 2013, enough to circle the equator 115 times.
So far, the country has put in place a rural transport infrastructure network in which county roads connect rural and urban areas, township roads crisscross, and village roads facilitate travel between households and farmland, the white paper said.
Roads have been built with higher technical standards across the country's rural areas. By the end of 2023, graded rural roads in China amounted to 4.45 million km, with its share in total rural roads reaching 96.8 percent, up 11.9 percentage points over the past 10 years.
Paved roads measured 4.22 million km and accounted for 91.8 percent of all rural roads, representing an increase of 27.2 percentage points over the past decade.
The white paper also highlighted increasing accessibility in rural areas, saying that paved roads have been built in about 30,000 towns and townships and over 500,000 administrative villages.
China has built paved roads in rural tourist destinations, industrial parks, sources of resources and minerals, and other points of economic growth, which has made travel in remote areas and particularly in mountainous areas more convenient, according to the white paper.
Mileage of China's rural roads grows to 4.6 million km by end of 2023: white paper
Mileage of China's rural roads grows to 4.6 million km by end of 2023: white paper
Japanese experts said that the ruling coalition of the country will face considerable challenges and uncertainties in future political and economic governance as it loses majority in the lower house.
Japan's Diet convened for an extraordinary session on Thursday. The focus will be on reviewing the supplementary budget for fiscal year 2024 and discussions on amending the Political Funds Control Act.
The session will be the first full-fledged debate since the governing coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito Party lost their majority in last month's lower house election.
Shozaburo Sakai, former president of Chuo University, a leading Japanese university in Tokyo, said as a minority government, the ruling coalition will face great challenges in promoting political and economic reforms.
"The Ishiba administration, which is in power as a minority, now relies most on winning the support of public opinion. Because the administration has become a minority in the lower house, it may face a challenge of a no-confidence motion at any time. If a no-confidence motion is proposed [by the opposition party], the minority government might be overthrown at any time," he said.
Sakai said that the current domestic prices in Japan has continued to rise, the cost of living for the people continues to rise, and raising the policy interest rate and curbing the depreciation of the yen are direct means to deal with rising prices.
However, under the influence of the previous long-term negative interest rate policy, the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan depends on bank loans, and the interest rate hikes are fatal to these enterprises, according to Sakai.
"The Ishiba administration needs to consider the cost of living of the people, so in order to curb price increases, it needs to guide the yen to appreciate steadily. However, if the yen is guided to appreciate, small and medium-sized enterprises will be in trouble and may even go bankrupt, which creates a difficult situation," he said.
Japan's ruling coalition to face multiple governing challenges: expert
