China Development Bank (CDB) issued 216.2 billion yuan (about USD 31 billion) in loans for road projects across the country in the first eight months of 2024, as it continued to increase medium- and long-term financial support for the transport sector, the bank has said. China's News Agency (Xinhua) reported the bank as saying that, since the start of this year, the bank has maintained its support of the construction of the nation's comprehensive transport network, served major regional strategies, and provided solid financial support for the high-quality development of the transport sector. Loans issued this year have focused on renovation and expansion of busy sections of the national expressway network, as well as the construction of inter-provincial road sections that were yet to be connected, the bank noted. By providing financial support to various projects, the bank is contributing to the nation's efforts to accelerate the establishment of a modern road infrastructure system, the bank added. Genera l manager of the Transport Department of CDB, Guan Hongyan, said that in the next phase, the bank will continue to improve its financial product system in an effort to provide full-cycle support for road infrastructure development and make further contributions to the high-quality development of the transport sector and Chinese modernization. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China has the world's longest expressway network. As of the end of 2023, the mileage of the nation's expressways had totaled 184,000 km. Meanwhile, total road mileage in China had reached 5.44 million km. From 2013 to 2023, annual investment growth in the transport sector in China had reached 8.1 percent on average. Average annual growth of road transport investment, in particular, stood at 10.1 percent, the NBS data showed. Source: Qatar News Agency