The freeway connecting Guang'an City,the hometown of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, with the Nanchong City, both in southwest China's Sichuan Province opened on Sunday.

As a section of the national highway from eastern metropolis Shanghai to Chengdu, capital of the province, the 70-kilometer-long freeway took two and a half years for construction.

In addition, on the same day, another freeway from the province's Dazhou City to its neighboring municipality of Chongqing also opened to operation.

The freeway has a 165.8-kilometer-long section in Sichuan and the whole project started in the August of 2001.

The opening of the two freeways is expected not only to improvethe transportation in the mountainous Sichuan province, but also to inject new energy to the economic development of China's western areas, according to local officials.

Source: Xinhua