Resource information
China's economic development
since the opening of its economy in the late 1970s has
resulted in an eight percent average annual rate of economic
growth. Key facets of this growth are rapidly increasing
domestic and foreign trade as well as increasing personal
mobility and consumption of energy. The deficiencies of the
Chinese road and highway system have in particular created a
bottleneck in China's economic development. The major
objective of the China country assistance strategy (since
the 1980s) was to alleviate infrastructure bottlenecks, in
providing financial resources and promoting sector reforms
in China. In 1997-98, the World Bank worked together with
the Chinese government in completing a review of the
transport sector and preparing an intermodal transport
strategy. The strategy provides proposals for increasing
competition and efficiency, identifies the changing patterns
of demand for transport, and advances the analysis of
investment needs of the sector and their financing.
