Highway network becomes world's largest
The Ministry of Transport (MOT) on Tuesday began soliciting public opinion on a revised regulation for toll roads, saying that the country will continue to collect tolls on highways.
The previous regulation, which came into effect in November 2004, allows road construction to be financed by tolls that may be collected for up to 30 years.
The revised version released on Tuesday said that for extremely costly projects, the toll collection period could exceed 30 years.
The road system developed rapidly in the past decade, backed by toll highways. China only had 34,288 kilometers of highway in 2004, but a decade later the network had swelled to 112,000 kilometers, the world's largest, Xu Chengguang, a spokesperson for the MOT, told a press conference on Tuesday.
In addition to adjusting the time limit for toll collection, the revised regulation raises the threshold for roads eligible for toll collection and strengthens the government administration of toll roads, Wei Dong, an MOT official, told the press conference.
Toll highways account for about 3 percent of the road system, the MOT said.
"It is unlikely that toll collection will stop, given the large debt that is outstanding for highways," Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, told the Global Times Tuesday.
The toll highway system lost 66 billion yuan ($10.66 billion) in 2013 due to rising construction costs and high expenses, according to a report from the MOT in December 2014.
In 2013, toll collection stood at 365 billion yuan, but expenditure totaled 431 billion yuan, MOT data showed, and much of the money was used to repay debt.
Experts said that the highway network is still developing rapidly and debt incurred for construction may increase further. The MOT said that in the future, road construction will be mainly financed by government bonds instead of bank loans.
Many provincial governments have lost money on highway projects, so they should take steps to reduce the losses, especially by collecting tolls, Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and expert on tunnel engineering, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The government should focus on building free roads, which account for 97 percent of the road network, Wang said.
