Shanghai to spend $14.6 bln on public transport. Exhibition and exhibition business news for Ukraine and all over the world

Shanghai is to invest 110 billion yuan ($14.6 billion) on public transport to attract an extra 5 million people a day to takes buses and subways by 2009, Chinese state media said on Tuesday.

That would mean more than one-third of the residents of the nation's teeming financial capital using public transport, up from one-quarter at present, the official China Daily said.

Almost two-thirds of Shanghai's residents who used public transport took the bus and just one-fifth the subway, it added. But the city needed better planning to integrate the bus and subway systems, a former official was quoted as saying.

Shanghai is investing billions of dollars in infrastructure ahead of its hosting of the 2010 World Expo, including a huge expansion of both its airports and massive extension of its subway network, already one of China's best. Many other Chinese cities are making similar investments to avoid total gridlock on their roads amid rising private car ownership on the back of an economic boom.

Source: www.reuters.com.