Around 3,200 kilometers of road and nearly 1,000 bridges have been built across Tongzhou district. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] 

Since 2009, the Tongzhou government has invested nearly 3 billion yuan ($419.77 million) into the construction of transportation infrastructure in rural area and in 2018, the district was praised by the provincial government for the high-quality of its rural transportation infrastructure. 

Around 3,200 kilometers of road and nearly 1,000 bridges have been built across Tongzhou, a district of Nantong, Jiangsu province. Tongzhou’s 181 villages can now all be reached by bus and by car. 

The local government has also invested a lot into the maintenance of the roads, which have a greening rate of 99 percent and 91.4 percent of which are regarded as high-quality roads. 

“Roads are to rural areas as capillaries are to the human body. Without roads, our business cannot succeed,” said Wu Huikang, a consultant for Ruixin Equipment Manufacturing Co Ltd (Ruixin), pointing to the newly rebuilt road in front of his company. 

The development of Ruixin had been hindered by the poor quality of the area’s transportation infrastructure. Now the company has increased its employees from just 30 to over 200, and the company is among the top 100 taxpayers in Tongzhou.