Improved transport making regions richer

Chen Min, a 45-year-old fruit vendor in Liuzhi special district in Southwest China's Guizhou province, never thought that her small business would become internationalized.

Born in the town of Longhe, Chen started selling fruits from a roadside stall in the town three years ago. In addition to the locally produced fruit she sells, Chen buys non-local fruit from a market near Liuzhi East Station.

"I often buy wholesale bananas, mangos and dragon fruit from a trader coming from Kunming in Yunnan province which borders Guizhou," said Chen, pointing to the dozen types of fruit on her food stand. "Some tropical fruits come from Laos, which are transported to Yunnan via the China-Laos Railway."

The 1,035-kilometer railway, which runs between Kunming South Station and Vientiane South Station in Laos, went into operation in December 2021, transporting over 3,800 kinds of goods in addition to passengers.

The railway has become an important logistics channel connecting China, Laos and Southeast Asian countries.

"Besides those non-local fruits, the plums, peaches and watermelons are locally produced," she said, adding that she can earn over 100,000 yuan ($14,730) annually from selling fruit.

Chen said she is now betting on the expanded Shanghai-Kunming Expressway, which runs through Liuzhi and serves as a crucial horizontal transport artery connecting western Guizhou with Yunnan and Southeast Asia.

The 2,730-km Shanghai-Kunming Expressway, which was fully connected on Sept 8, 2011, has faced pressure as the existing four-lane road section in Guizhou has had to battle congestion amid fast economic growth.

To alleviate congestion and aid regional economic development, Guizhou decided to expand the Anshun-Panzhou section of the expressway, with the expansion starting in 2022, said Li Shifu, Party secretary of the APFJ-3 division of China Railway No 4 Engineering Group in building the section.

Invested by Guizhou Transportation Investment Group, the Anshun-Panzhou expressway cost some 32.311 billion yuan and has 97 km within Liupanshui, Li said.

"With the new Anshun-Panzhou section being put into operation later this year alongside the existing expressway, fruit coming from Laos and from Kunming will be faster, while transport costs will fall," Chen said, adding that this will help her earn more.

China has been bolstering its road network, with the Ministry of Transport saying the country invested some 779.7 billion yuan on building roads during the first five months of this year.

Experts estimate the nation's roads transported some 21.2 billion metric tons of goods during the first half, as well as 23 billion trips for passengers during the period.

Agricultural advancement

Administered by the prefecture-level city of Liupanshui, county-level Liuzhi houses some 750,300 residents coming from 32 ethnic groups in 15 towns, and its agricultural produce is noticeable.

Liuzhi netted a regional GDP of 19.387 billion yuan in 2025, an annual hike of 6.0 percent, said Yao Hong, magistrate of Liuzhi, promising to increase the local GDP by 6.5 percent in 2026.

The modernization of agriculture in Liuzhi is accelerating, Yao said, adding that "we have turned mountainous agriculture into a distinctive product and achieved a new leap in traditional industries".

Wei Mingxiang is the head of a professional strawberry and vegetable planting cooperative in Mugang town, grouping five families.

Set up in July 2014, the cooperative is engaged in strawberry, konjac and vegetable planting, netting some 600,000 yuan each year, Wei said.

With 96 vegetable greenhouses on a land of some six hectares, the group can produce over 1,500 kilograms of "Chocolate" brand strawberries per 600 square meters between November and early April.

"During the holidays and weekends, people from the cities of Anshun and Guiyang, our provincial capital, would drive to our greenhouses to pick strawberries," Wei said.

In busy days, he would hire a dozen local farmers to help.

He said he hoped that the new Anshun-Panzhou expressway will help bring more visitors. The section starts at the county seat of Puding county in Anshun and ends at Panguan town in Panzhou under Liupanshui.

Yao said that his district will prioritize characteristic agricultural industries to let farmers earn more and faster.

It will build over 333 hectares of high-standard vegetable bases, cultivate 6,086 hectares of tea plants, grow 16,670 hectares of vegetables, and 9,066 hectares of high-quality fruit this year, he said, noting that it also aims to raise 320,000 pigs, 36,700 beef cattle, 39,900 sheep and 3.83 million poultry this year.