Skip to main content

China making plans to boost toll roads

China is considering regulations that would allow road operators to levy a toll on users beyond the current 15 to 30-year limit, according to Bloomberg. The plan would potentially boost an industry that has been plagued by losses as companies struggle to earn enough to cover their debt and operating costs. “The extension of the tolling period can help to woo private investors into highway development,” said Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JPMorgan Chase in Hong Kong. The plan shows the government’s
August 7, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
China is considering regulations that would allow road operators to levy a toll on users beyond the current 15 to 30-year limit, according to Bloomberg. The plan would potentially boost an industry that has been plagued by losses as companies struggle to earn enough to cover their debt and operating costs.

“The extension of the tolling period can help to woo private investors into highway development,” said Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JPMorgan Chase in Hong Kong. The plan shows the government’s desire to promote joint government and private-sector projects, he said.

China’s government is trying to avoid incurring massive debt to stimulate the economy, opting instead to inject money into lenders and free up more commercial-bank reserves for lending. Extending toll collection by 10 years would generate $640 billion more revenue, according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on last year’s fee revenue.

Related Content

  • October 13, 2015
    Politicisation of US transportation funding
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at how a political stalemate and a series of short-term fixes is undermining America’s highway funding and curtailing long-term planning. It was a week before the deadline to renew funding for the Highway Trust Fund, and the clock was ticking.
  • January 31, 2012
    Australian road pricing, road funding needs more debate
    Everyone in the road transport industry in Australia is talking road pricing - everyone, that is, except the politicians. Christine Keyes reports. At the end of 2008, Australia's road transport industry was wringing its collective hands, unable to raise more than $100 million from an individual bank for any Public Private Partnership (PPP). The A$750 million Peninsula Link project, announced by the Victoria Government in March 2009, was the first road project in the country to be put out to market as an ava
  • December 5, 2017
    New Mersey crossing ends Halton’s congestion misery
    Plagued by intolerable congestion but denied government funding for its solution, tiny Halton Borough Council relentlessly pursued its vision and achieved what many believed impossible. Halton may be a small local authority in north west England, but it had a big traffic problem. However, as the road, or more particularly the bridge, involved was not deemed a strategic route, central government would not commission or even fund a solution - a problem that many other local authorities will recognise.
  • November 13, 2012
    Latest ITS technology upgrades India's toll systems
    An ambitious programme of new and upgraded interoperable toll systems has been launched in India, featuring far-reaching technology developments. David Crawford reports. In April this year, Indian Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways CP Joshi inaugurated a new era of electronic toll collection (ETC) in India when he unveiled the country’s first RFID-based tolling installation. This was at a recently-completed plaza at Chandimandir, near the city of Panchkula in the northern state of Haryana. The sys