China's transportation network has been increasingly improved with profound progress made in the past decade, the Ministry of Transport said Tuesday at a news conference on transport support for the nation's goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
Minister of Transport Li Xiaopeng noted that high-speed railways now cover over 95 percent of cities with a population over one million, expressways more than 98 percent of cities with a population over 200,000, and airports over 92 percent of cities at the prefecture level.
At the end of 2020, about 161,000 kilometers of expressways had opened to traffic, making China No. 1 in the world, officials told the press conference. High-speed railways have had an operating mileage of 38,000 kilometers.
China had 241 certified airports by the end of 2020, 58 more than in 2012. The number of air routes nationwide increased over 120 percent to 5,581 last year from 2457 in 2012.
A large number of key projects, including the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, the Beijing Daxing International Airport and the Shanghai Yangshan Deep Water Port, have been put into use and become China's business cards.
The country's courier services expanded rapidly to 1.1 trillion yuan ($170 billion) in 2020 from 198 billion yuan in 2012, with an average annual increase of 24 percent.
The courier business volume increased to 83.5 billion pieces from 5.7 billion pieces, a 14-fold net increase. The express delivery network is more extensive, with 98 percent of counties and townships covered.
