The State Development Bank has agreed to extend a 5-billion-yuan (625 million U.S. dollars) loan to support rural road construction in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

The loan will benefit 19.35 million people, more than half of the province's population, in 11 cities, according to an agreement signed between the Shaanxi provincial branch of the bank and the provincial department of communication.

The Shaanxi provincial government plans to build or renovate 90,000 kilometers of rural roads linking nearly all its villages in the next five years.

The underdeveloped province is raising diverse funds, including commercial loans and subsidies from the central government to finance the projects, which will cost at least 20 billion yuan (2.5 billion U.S. dollars).

By the end of 2005, the Shaanxi branch of the bank had approved 53.1 billion yuan (6.64 billion U.S. dollars) of loans to the province's road sector, about 20 billion yuan (2.5 billion U.S. dollars) of which had been extended.

Source: Xinhua