According to the plan of Ministry of Communications of China, the total highway mileage by 2010 will be between 2.1-2.3 million km, and 5 vertical and 7 horizontal national trunk highways will be completed. In addition, the expressway access rate among cities with population over 200,000 will reach 90%, and the total expressway mileage is expected to amount to 50,000 km.
As an infrastructure industry, the highway construction industry not only plays an important role in the development of national economy, but also promotes the development of many other industries. Due to its particularity from project approval to plan and then to capital, the highway construction industry is largely influenced by the governmental policies. However, the investment body has become more diversified instead of previous single state investment since the introduction of non-public capitals. Although this change still maintains the highways under the control of Chinese government, yet it forces the management model of highway administrations to change from direct control to indirect control.
As highway construction policies gradually turned open, the highway construction has experienced a peak in 2006. However, it is also confronted with grim challenges, and still lags behind the developed countries.
In terms of the industrial lifecycle, the highway construction industry currently is in a growth period; from the angle of expansion coefficient, the industry has now met the best period for expansion since the year of 2000, moreover, the investment risk is relatively small; in view of fluctuation coefficient, the industrial development sees a small fluctuation, which indicates that the investment risk grade is in medium level.
High-grade highways develop rapidly in China in recent years, but the highway maintenance industry could not catch up with its pace, which results in some gaps, so investors also suggested to keep an eye on the highway maintenance industry apart from high-grade highway construction.
