Luanchuan County, for example, received more than 2.69 million tourists in 2005 and achieved a tourist income of 760 million yuan after a new cement highway was built to connect all its major tourism sites.

More than 20 per cent of the county's farmers became rich by engaging themselves in the tourism industry.

Children in the Xixiaochou Village of Mengzhou, Henan Province, go to school along a newly built highway.

With the expansion of rural highways, the abundant mineral resources of coal, iron, copper and aluminium in Xiuwu County's countryside can now be conveniently transported to all parts of the country.

Farmers in the province's mountain areas perhaps benefit most from the rural highway construction.

In the past, such isolated farmers could not carry their native products to the outside world for lack of highways and had to helplessly watch their produce rot away.

They can now sell their native products, such as walnuts, persimmon fruits, hawthorn, wild wood ears, honey and Chinese medicinal material, just in front of their homes.

The developed network of rural highways has attracted a lot of investors from home and abroad to build plants or industrial parks in rural areas.

Foreign investment brought a fundamental change to the traditional economic mode in rural areas and promoted the development of private economic sectors.

The Xiaye Township near Jiyuan City has attracted an investment of 160 million yuan since a highway was built to connect the township and the city.

The township now has an industrial park of coke chemicals and a production base of limestone, which have created more than 1,000 jobs for the town's surplus labour force.

In 2006, the town had 12 million yuan in financial revenue, a 50 percent increase from 2005. Farmers' income increased 450 yuan from 2005 on average.

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