GUANGZHOU: South China's Guangdong Province has planned to invest more than 48.5 billion yuan ($6.2 billion) to further upgrade its communication facilities this year.

Of the total investment, 33 billion yuan ($4.22 billion) will go to construction of highways and expressways while the rest 15.5 billion yuan ($1.98 billion) will be used to build ports and water channels, said Zhang Yuanyi, director-general of Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Communications.

"The new expressways that Guangdong will construct will cover more than 600 kilometers this year," said Zhang.

"And top priorities will be given to construction of the new Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway along the eastern bank of the Pearl River, the second phase of a new Guangzhou-Zhuhai Expressway, Guangzhou-Wuzhou Expressway and Guangzhou Hezhou Expressway, both linking the Guangdong provincial capital to Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region," Zhang told a work conference in Guangzhou on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Expressway of Shaoguan-Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province and the Foshan-Kaiping Expressway will also be expanded this year, Zhang added.

The second phase Guangzhou-Zhuhai Expressway will be completed before the end of the year. The second phase of the expressway includes construction of a 45.6 kilometer long expressway section that costs more than 5.3 billion yuan ($677.75 million). The first phase of Guangzhou-Zhuhai Expressway had begun in December 2005.

And the expansion of Foshan-Kaiping Expressway that costs more than 3.75 billion yuan ($47.95 million) will be completed in 2008. The 55-kilometer long expressway will be upgraded to an eight-lane expressway from the current four-lane when the project is completed.

According to the development plan of highways in Guangdong, the province will also construct and rebuild national and provincial highways, covering 500 kilometers, and township and village highways, covering more than 7,000 kilometers in 2007 to form an advanced highway network linking every village in the province.

Last year, Guangdong Province invested a total of 46.2 billion yuan ($5.91 billion) in building its communication facilities, up year-on-year 13.45 percent. A length of 200 kilometers of expressways were constructed in 2006, bringing the province's total expressway in service to 3,340 kilometers.

The southern Chinese province invested a total of 11.8 billion yuan ($1.51 billion) in port construction last year. The throughput of ports in Guangdong reached more than 800 million tons in the previous year, up 13.91 percent from 2005 and coming first on the Chinese mainland.