The World Bank Friday announced it had approved two loans totaling 350 million U.S. dollars to help China enhance food safety and improve roads in the country's northwest.

A food safety project in northeast China's Jilin Province, one of the country's major agricultural provinces, would receive 100 million U.S. dollars to help improve agricultural product quality and reduce food safety risks.

The loan will fund up to 70 percent of the total spending of project, the first food safety project that the World Bank has supported in China and also the largest food safety project ever financed by the bank.

The project would help introduce good agricultural practice, improve the implementation of food safety regulations, and strengthen the food safety monitoring system, according to a statement from the bank's Beijing Office.

If the project proved successful, the measures would be introduced to other provinces in China, said the statement.

The other 250 million U.S. dollars will finance a highway project in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, northwest China, accounting for over 44 percent of the total project cost of 573.68 million U.S. dollars.

The loan will fund construction of a four-lane freeway, the improvement of rural roads in the poorest counties, and rehabilitation of three badly damaged sections of a national highway.

As the second highway project financed by the bank in Ningxia, the project will also support studies of road safety, highway maintenance, logistics, staff training, procurement of maintenance equipment, and enhancement of public road safety awareness, said the bank.

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