North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will invest 22 billion yuan (2.66 billion US dollars) on building highways this year to further improve local transportation conditions, a local government official said.

Zhao Shuanglian, vice-chairman of the regional people's government, said that large amounts of funds will be used to buildsections of No. 110 and No. 210 national expressways. The money will also go to building highways to link the rural areas.

The investment is coming from government investment, bank loans,foreign funds and funds raised through build-operate-transfer (BOT)system, Zhao told a recent work meeting on local communications.

Inner Mongolia built 1,841 kilometers of highways at a cost of 20.1 billion yuan (2.43 billion US dollars) last year, bringing the total length of highway that are open to traffic to 75,976 kilometers in the region.

Source: Xinhua