CRI听力:High Road Tolls Slow China's Economic Development

After allowing toll-free hours during the Spring Festival, the Ministry of Communications has announced that a measure is under discussion to eliminate tolls during the nation's longer holiday periods.

According to a World Bank report, China has 100,000 kilometers of the world's 140,000 kilometers of toll highways. Statistics from the World Logistics Association shows that China's logistic costs are 18 percent of its domestic GDP, half of which is generated by the tolls. This figure is twice as high as developed countries.

Zhou Minliang, a researcher at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says this has been contrary to the purpose of expressway construction.

"Originally, expressways in almost all the countries share the responsibility of public undertakings. Its function is to promote the movement of goods and produce to markets. The numerous tollgates in China have increased transportation costs, hindering the development of the society."

In 1984, the State Council approved a highway construction policy that allowed provincial governments and contracted private companies to raise money for highway construction and recover it through tolls.

This loan-dependent road construction model played a positive role in improving the country's underdeveloped road network when China was not financially powerful enough to inject enough public funds into highway construction. However, with the GDP-dominated performance assessment mechanism for local governments and in the absence of an explicit and binding State-level monitoring mechanism, this model has been abused in some regions and even used as an important means of increasing local fiscal revenues.

Professor Zhang Xiaode of the National School of Administration points out that toll-free highways can contribute more to Chinese economy.

"Right now, many Chinese families have a car, but self-driven travel and motels have not been developed due to the high expressway tolls. In western developed countries, the tourist market of self-driven travel and motels is huge."

At a time when China faces inflation pressures despite its obvious economic deceleration, a sweeping and more forceful nationwide toll reform campaign should be launched to lower the country's logistic costs and curb the excessive profits of highway companies.

For CRI, I'm Wang Xiao.