The highway being constructed to span the Taklimakan Desert,
northwest China's
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, will be completed and put
into use half a year ahead of schedule.
An official with the project section of the China Railways No.15
Bureau, the builder, said the workers had so far completed 285 km
of the road bed which is now ready for asphalt. The 424-km-long
highway is designed to link Aral on the northwestern fringe of the
desert and Hotan in the south.
Construction of the highway, the second of its kind in the
desert, began on June 1 last year. Most of the investment in the
highway construction, estimated at 834 million yuan (US$103
million), is borne by the state.
??? In accordance with an original construction
schedule, the highway will be finished by December 2007. Upon its
completion in June next year, the highway will help shorten the
journey from the north of Taklimakan to its southern fringe by 400
km, and will be brought into a trunk transport network together
with two other national highways No. 314 and No. 315.
Xinjiang's first desert highway, which is east to the highway
being constructed, has a length of 522 kilometers. The first desert
highway, also a north-south road from Lunnan to Minfeng, was opened
to traffic in 1995. It is the world's longest desert highway.
(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2006)