A new expressway connecting five cities in east China's Shandong Province was opened to traffic Saturday, five months ahead of schedule.

The 389-kilometer expressway, with a total investment of 11 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion), is part of the Beijing-Fuzhou expressway, a national artery which is under construction. Fuzhou is the capital city of Fujian Province also in east China.

With the completion of the new road, Shandong now has 2,052.6 kilometers of expressways up to the state-set quality standard, thanks to the province's efforts to accelerate infrastructure construction over the past few years.

Li Chunting, governor of the province, said that Shandong intends to build a highway network in the coming five to 10 years, with the total length of expressways reaching 4,000 kilometers.

(Eastday.com.cn 06/17/2001)