China has increased the construction of highway infrastructure in order to maintain and increase investment and stabilize the economy, according to the Ministry of Transport. From January to September, construction began on 299 new expressway and national and provincial highway projects with a total length of 9,645 kilometers and 882 billion yuan ($121 billion) in investment, Gu Zhifeng, deputy chief of the highway bureau of the Ministry of Transport, said at a news conference on Oct 31. Among the projects, 34 of them stretching 2,132 km were started in September, and account for 43.7 percent of the total road infrastructure investment in the first three quarters of the year. (....)