This year, Anhui Province will intensify project efforts in transportation infrastructure construction to accelerate key projects. A three-year action plan for building a strong transportation province will be issued, benchmarking against neighboring provinces in the Yangtze River Delta to take solid first steps toward this goal.

　　At the 2021 provincial transportation work conference held recently, Zhang Yi, director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Transportation, said that the "14th Five-Year Plan" period is a time of vigorous development for the province's transportation infrastructure and comprehensive transportation. The focus will be on benchmarking against the Yangtze River Delta, strengthening weak links, adjusting structure, improving quality and efficiency, and enhancing momentum, promoting deep integration in transportation infrastructure, transport services, smart and green transportation, and institutional mechanisms, advancing the coordinated development of railways, highways, waterways, civil aviation, pipelines and other transportation networks, and accelerating the building of a safe, convenient, efficient, green and economical modern comprehensive transportation system. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, Anhui's investment in transportation infrastructure such as highways and waterways reached 424 billion yuan, 1.41 times the planned target and nearly 20 billion yuan more than the combined total of the "11th Five-Year Plan" and "12th Five-Year Plan" periods. More than 100 key projects were successfully implemented, including the Yangtze-to-Huaihe Water Diversion shipping project, the Second Wuhu Yangtze River Bridge, and Wuhu Xuanzhou Airport. Construction started on 2,228 kilometers of expressways, 2,607 kilometers of new first-class highways were added, and 127,000 kilometers of rural roads were built. In 2020, a total of 83.47 billion yuan was completed, up 5.9 percent year on year.

　　This year, Anhui Province will highlight project breakthroughs, adopt unconventional operational approaches, and push for the start of construction on 19 expressway projects, including the Wuhu-Xuancheng Expressway expansion and the Taihu-Qichun Expressway. It will carry out a concentrated campaign on preliminary work for ordinary national and provincial trunk highways, focusing on and prioritizing first-class highway connectivity projects from the provincial capital to cities and from cities to counties, as well as projects to connect bottleneck sections between cities, and accelerate preliminary work on first-class highway projects such as the Quanjiao section of National Highway 312 and the Hanshan section of National Highway 329. Construction will start on waterway projects including the Bengbu section improvement of the Tuo-Hui River waterway, Phase II of Dingbu Port in Langxi County, and the Suixi County bulk cargo terminal, as well as on two civil airports—Phase II of Hefei Xinqiao Airport and Bozhou Airport—and six general aviation airports including Feidong Bailong, Feixi Guanting, and Tongcheng.

　　This year, Anhui Province will make every effort to advance the construction of 20 expressway projects under way, complete the Gubang Expressway, the Wuhu-Huangshan Expressway, and the Chizhou-Shitai section of the Chiqi Expressway, and fully achieve "expressways in every county." It will advance the construction of 3,000 kilometers of ordinary national and provincial trunk highways and add more than 100 kilometers of first-class highway connectivity projects from the provincial capital to cities and from cities to counties. It will accelerate the expansion and renovation of Fuyang, Chizhou, and Anqing transport airports, complete the apron expansion of Hefei Xinqiao Airport and the new construction of Lujiang General Aviation Airport. The annual plan is to add 240 kilometers of expressway mileage and complete 300 kilometers of first-class highways and 3,000 kilometers of rural roads.