A subway connecting Guangzhou, one of the major gateways to south China, and Foshan City of Guangdong Province will begin construction late this year.

Sources from Guangdong Provincial Development Planning Commission said that the provincial government had approved the building of the new subway.

Foshan lies to the southwest of Guangzhou, capital of GuangdongProvince. The planned new subway will start from Fangcun in Guangzhou, traverse part of Nanhai City, also in Guangdong Province, and end in Foshan City.

The new subway will have a length of 22 km and will cost 10 billion yuan (about US$ 1.21 billion) which will be jointly borne by Foshan, Nanhai and Guangzhou cities.

It is expected that the new subway will be finished by 2005.

In China, only Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangzhou have subways. Other Chinese cities such as Chongqing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Wuhan, Qingdao, as well as Shenyang and Suzhou have been constructing or have plans to construct subways.

( People's Daily March 31, 2002)