Mountains and hills cover about 94% of the land area of Yunnan, a landlocked province in southwestern People’s Republic of China (PRC). In 2008, the province’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was 55% of the national average, the third lowest among the country’s administrative areas. Poverty incidence was among the highest, at 15% of the province’s total 45.3 million people. With a concentration in the mountainous western, southeastern, and northeastern areas, poverty in Yunnan was associated with limited arable land and poor transport, particularly outside the urban centers. The road network, while relatively dense, provides low levels of service, limiting its contribution to income generation, employment creation, and poverty reduction.
To help address the situation, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a loan of $250 million for the Yunnan Integrated Road Network Development Project in December 2010. The project was to be the last in a series of 5 ADB-financed interventions to implement the National Expressway Network Plan (NENP) of Yunnan. Its anticipated impact was sustainable economic and social development. Its expected outcome was an efficient, safe, sustainable, and environment-friendly transport system. It had 4 planned outputs: (i) construction of the Longling–Ruili highway corridor (LRHC), (ii) improved local road network in Yunnan, (iii) improved rural roads in the Dehong prefecture, and (iv) enhanced capacities and performance of selected road agencies and road maintenance groups.
At completion, a 163.3 kilometer− (km) long LRHC was constructed, consisting of 134.1 km of 4-lane expressway and 29.2 km of 2-lane class II highway. Bridges and tunnels comprise about 53% of the total length. Ancillary facilities were built, including a traffic monitoring center, tunnel management stations, service areas, and toll stations. The expressway was landscaped, incorporating cultural features of Yunnan’s ethnic minorities.
Improvements in the local road network included the reconstruction and paving of 636.45 km of national and provincial roads in 9 prefectures and cities and the greening of the rehabilitated road sections. The performance-based road maintenance practice was rolled out in all the county communication bureaus of Dehong, with a total of 438 village maintenance groups keeping in good condition the 4,714 township and village roads of the prefecture.
Trainings on construction safety and quality, bridge and tunnel engineering, earthquake emergency response, and more benefited about 5,000 people. 1,648 poor people, 90% of whom were women, were also trained in road maintenance techniques.
Delivery of the planned outputs, in many cases exceeding targets, led to the attainment of most the project’s outcome targets. Travel time from Longling to Ruili was halved. Speeds along rehabilitated roads reached 35−60 km per hour. Non−tolled ordinary roads in good condition increased to 82.65% in 2015, well beyond the 50% target and a year ahead of schedule. The percentage of rural population with access to all-weather roads in Dehong had been increasing yearly, reaching 76% in 2014 and 80% in 2015.
ADB’s East Asia Department rated the project highly successful. The Yunnan Provincial Department of Transport, the executing agency, was joined by the Yunnan LongRui Expressway Company Limited, Yunnan Provincial Highway Bureau, and the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture Communications Bureau as implementing agencies.
