China welcomes more world advanced transport technologies to be used in its mass transportation construction in the next two decades, which will be the largest-scale even in the world, a senior Chinese transport expert said in Beijing on May 27.

    Feng Maorun, chief engineer of the Ministry of Communications, made the remarks at the three-day eighth International Conference on Application of Advanced Technologies in Transportation Engineering, which opened in Beijing on May 26.

    According to Feng, China is now planning the construction of an 85,000-km-long national expressway network and a 100,000-km-long national railway network, aiming to improve its transport capacity to completely meet the demand of its economic and social development by the year 2020.

    Feng said the next 20 years will witness the fastest period of infrastructure development in China, including road, waterway and railway construction.

    During that period, China will further increase exchanges and cooperation with the world's top transport technology institutes and agencies, so as to apply more advanced technologies into China's transport sector and upgrade the industry's scientific level, noted Feng.

    China began the cooperation with some foreign transport institutes or agencies back in the 1980s, and the cooperation was expanded fast in the 1990s. With more and more foreign techniques adopted in China's transport projects, the country's transport design and construction capability has been greatly improved.

    Feng said the project of Sutong Bridge in east China's Jiangsu province can be a fine example to indicate China's progress.

    The Sutong Bridge is a huge project of 7,687 meters in total length crossing the Yangtze River linking Nantong and Suzhou, bothcities in Jiangsu province. With a main span of 1,088 meters, the highway bridge set a new world record of span length of this type of structure.

    The design and construction of the bridge is shouldered solely by Chinese experts, which is currently the hardest bridge project that China has undertaken by itself. The construction of the bridge, which began in June 2003, will be completed by December 2008.

    In view of a growing number of foreign transport firms planning to enter China for business, Feng advised these companies first to do more researches on the Chinese market, which has undergone a lot of changes compared with a decade ago. He suggested that cooperation with some good local companies will be a proper way for new foreign investors in these areas.

    Besides improving transport technologies, Feng said, China should also pay more attention on its management level of the transport industry, especially in the sector of transportation systems, information transmission and logistics.

    This is the first time China has hosted the international conference, which had drawn more than 100 transport experts from 27 countries including the United States, Germany, Canada and Japan, as well as over 500 Chinese transport experts.

    The conference was initiated by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and hosted by the China Academy of Transportation Sciences. The participants discussed during the conference some hot topics on transport technologies, like intelligent transport system, highway protection, bridge design, transport security and environmental protection.