(Yicai) Aug. 19 -- China plans to fully connect three national highways, the G219, the G331 and the G228, before 2030 to form a “Golden Outer Ring” spanning more than 26,000 kilometers, according to the Ministry of Transport. The super-long route will serve as an important corridor for tourism, resource development and border security.

The route will pass through a diverse range of landscapes, from snow-capped mountains and high plateaus to grasslands, rainforests, deserts and coastal areas, creating a unique self-driving tourism corridor. It will also strengthen domestic and international connectivity by linking major coastal ports with border crossings, creating a more integrated network of China’s land routes to Central and Southeast Asia .

Industry insiders estimate that about 7,400 kilometers of roads along the “Golden Outer Ring” will be newly built or upgraded between this year and 2030. The project includes numerous technically complex tunnels through mountains and under the sea. Direct investment over the next five years could potentially reach hundreds of billions of Chinese yuan, equivalent to tens of billions of US dollars. With supporting projects, the investment generated across the entire industrial chain will be even larger.

The G331 runs about 9,200 kilometers from Dandong in Liaoning province in the east to Altay in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the west. The G219 stretches around 10,000 kilometers from Kanas in Xinjiang in the north to Dongxing in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south. While the G228 runs approximately 7,400 kilometers from Dongxing in Guangxi in the south to Dandong in Liaoning in the north.

According to the plan, priority will be given to connecting the G219 section between Zhaosu and Wensu in Xinjiang and the G228 section at Baiqi in Quanzhou, southeastern Fujian province by 2030.

Construction of the box girders for Section 2 of the G219 Zhaosu-Wensu highway project was completed on Aug. 16, according to the WeChat account of CCCC First Highway Fifth Engineering. The milestone paves the way for subsequent bridge-deck paving and tunnel excavation.

The Zhaosu-Wensu section of the G219 is a key transport artery in Xinjiang connecting the northern and southern parts of the Tianshan Mountains. The West Tianshan Super-Long Tunnel will be 15.7 kilometers long, with as much as 2,365 meters of rock and earth above it at its deepest point.

Once completed, the highway distance between Yining and Aksu will be reduced to roughly one-quarter of the current distance, from 1,710 kilometers to 445 kilometers.

Editor: Kim Taylor