Continued steady growth was witnessed in transportation, posts and telecommunications. In 2002, their added value reached 551.8 billion yuan, up 7.7 percent over the previous year.

The total mileage of China's highways had ranked fourth in the world by the end of 2001, according to the second national survey of highways. The total mileage of highways in China (excluding those in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) had reached 1.7 million km.

The mileage of China's expressways has ranked second in the world. Since China began to build expressways in 1988, it has developed rapidly. The mileage of expressways open to traffic reached 6,258 km at the end of 1998, ranking eighth in the world. It exceeded 10,000 km at the end of 1999, ranking fourth; reached 16,000 km at the end of 2000, ranking third; and surpassed 19,000 km at the end of 2001, ranking second. At the end of 2002, the mileage of Chinese expressways was more than 25,200 km.

The business turnover of postal and telecom services in 2002 totaled 554.7 billion yuan, up 21.7 percent over the previous year. Of this total, that of postal services stood at 49.5 billion yuan, up 8.2 percent; and that of telecom services was 505.2 billion yuan, up 23.2 percent. Investment in the fixed assets of telecommunications in the year stood at 210.6 billion yuan. By the end of 2002, the total capacity of office exchanges reached 283.58 million gates, including 27.92 million gates of newly increased capacity during the year. The number of fixed telephone subscribers reached 214.42 million with 34.05 million new subscribers. Of this total, 135.95 million were urban subscribers and 78.47 million were rural subscribers. By the end of 2002, the total fixed-line and mobile telephone users numbered 421.04 million in China, an increase of 95.45 million compared with that at the end of the previous year, including an increase of some 61 million in the number of mobile phone subscribers. There were 33.7 telephones per 100 persons in China.