Aerial photo taken on May 3, 2021 shows the Haikou bay seaside walking road in Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan Province. Haikou, an important city of China's "Belt and Road" initiative and also a core city for the construction of free trade port in Hainan Province, will greet the first China International Consumer Products Expo.Photo:Xinhua

 
South China’s Hainan Province vowed on Tuesday to invest 220 billion yuan ($34.41 billion) by 2025 in order to improve local transportation and to build an international transportation hub that can connect most of foreign countries by using the province’s geographic advantages. 

The Hainan government on Tuesday revealed a comprehensive transportation development plan during the 14th Five-Year Plan period 2021-2025, which listed the detailed development plan of the provincial transportation system to ensure the construction of Hainan free trade port in future.

The plan highlighted the goal of expanding the province’s global airline networks around , including expanding the cover area of Russian language areas and Northeast Asia countries, increasing airlines to Oceania, South and West Asia, and exploring new long-distance airlines to Europe, America and Africa. 

The plan also vowed to increase the intensiveness of domestic flight network especially the airline among Hainan and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region and the island of Taiwan.

The capacity of airports in Hainan such as Meilan International Airport in Haikou , Phoenix Airport in Sanya also need to be improved in order to meet the requirement of the plan to build a top level aviation hub worldwide. In addition, the construction project of a new airport in Sanya which is exclusive for tourism is under investigation and scheduled to start construction during 14th Five-Year Plan period 2021-2025. 

As the third biggest strait of China, the development of marine transportation capacity of Qiongzhou Strait was also cited in the plan. The construction of Haikou port will be accelerated and new logistics delivery systems including using ferry planes and drones will be tested as part of the program rollout.

As of 2025, Hainan’s annual aviation capacity will reach 62 million-person times and 400,000 tons of cargo. The provincial cargo transportation volume by sea will cross 350 million tons and 7.5 million TEUs, said the plan. 

The plan also revealed the construction timescale for the provincial transportation system including high-speed railways, highways and general aviations sectors, and an advanced traffic system will be completed in Hainan by 2035.