According to the top leaders of the Shanghai airport group, experts will be commissioned to update the general plan of the Pudong Airport building.

Pudong is Shanghai's newest international airport built in 1999to take the burden off the existing Hongqiao Airport, and will shoulder the majority of air transport by 2010.

The building project, made up of four phases to be completed in2010, will make Pudong Airport a transport hub of Asia meeting international standards, said Du Chuncai, president of the Shanghai airport group.

The airport will be able to handle about 80 million passengers every year, 60 million more than the present capacity, and the twoairports together will be able to handle about 90 million passengers by 2010.

The first phase of the project was the building of the Pudong Airport, and the second phase will begin in 2003 with an investment of 10 billion yuan (1.2 billion US dollars).

In 2002, the passenger flow in Shanghai's airport was 24.68 million. As 70 million tourists are expected to travel to Shanghai during the 2010 World Expo, the city will see an increase of 15-20million airline passengers, said Du.

Air freight transport is also growing rapidly in Shanghai. The volume of freight through the city's two airports reached 1.31 million tons in 2002, exceeding the planned volume of the first phase of the project. Shanghai will also build a freight handling area in Pudong Airport to enhance its ability to transport and manage air freight.

Shanghai Announces 7-year Traffic Budget

The Shanghai government announced Tuesday it will invest 50 billion yuan (US$6 billion) over the next seven years on a series of new roads, many of which are already under construction.

The plan aims to develop a local road network that is 3,600 kilometers long, and can ensure commuters travel from any part of the city to any downtown location, in either Pudong or Puxi, within 45 minutes.

The announcement is just the latest in a series of moves to clear up traffic congestion in the city, particularly on bridges and tunnels that cross the Huangpu River.

Within seven years, the city's traffic capacity will increase by 60 percent from its current level, vowed Jin Jiamuo, a spokesperson for the Shanghai Engineering Administrative Bureau.

The 3,600-kilometer-network will include 300 kilometers of elevated ring roads at its core. As announced earlier, the city is planning to have a third ring road between the existing inner and outer ring roads by 2007.

"Though the past decade saw the addition of two ring roads and other thorough-fares, the city's overall road network has not been soundly created," said Gu Weihua, chief of the bureau's development planning department.

Later this year, the western and northern extensions of the Middle Ring Road will open to traffic, five new on and off ramps will be added to the Inner Ring Road, and a dozen local roads and elevated highways will be widened. Three new connections across the Huangpu River will also be completed by the end of 2003 - the Lupu Bridge, the Outer-Ring Tunnel, and the Dalian Road Tunnel.

(People's Daily January 9, 2003)