Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju vowed to improve the transportation infrastructure in an effort to ease the transportation bottleneck of the country's booming economy.
   
During his visit to Beijing's neighboring Hebei Province from April 7 to 8, Huang inspected the Daqin railway and Qinhuangdao, Jingtang and Caofeidian ports, all of which are major forces for coal transportation system.
   
Daqin railway, from Datong in north China's Shanxi Province to Qinhuangdao port in Hebei Province, is the country's first railway designed exclusively for transporting coal. At present most of the coal produced by north China's Shanxi Province is transported through Daqin railway, and then shipped to south China and abroad.
   
In recent years, however, coal was often delayed due to the shortfall of railway capacity and was overstocked in Qinhuangdao port. After technical improvement, the total capacity of the railway will reach 200 million tons of coal this year, 50 million more than 2004, while the throughput of Qinhuangdao will reach 150 million tons. 
  
"But still, it can not meet the actual demand of coal transportation. We should increase the capacity of coal transportation in line with the nation's general plan to ensure the smooth progress of its economy," said Huang. 
  
He also urged transportation departments to use all possible means to speed up construction of infrastructure such as railways, highways and ports and enhance the capacity of the current transportation system.
   
"Considering the tense transportation situation, we should give a priority to the transportation of important goods like grain, oil, coal, chemical fertilizer," said Huang.

(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2005)