Highway network

Guizhou embraced its first high-speed railway on Dec 26, 2014, when the Guiyang-Guangzhou railway was open to traffic. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Compared to areas where the terrain is flat and the highways cross plains, the cost of building a highway in Guizhou is generally about 30 percent higher than in other parts of China.

By the end of 2006, the total length of highways in Guizhou was less than 1,000 kilometers, a level that some coastal provinces in East China had attained by the late 1990s.

In early 2009, Guizhou focused on infrastructure, aiming to weave all of its 88 county-level regions into a highway network by 2015. The province now has 5,833 kilometers worth of highways.

About two thirds of Guizhou's highways go through rural areas, giving the province more confidence to promote the region to investors.