Chengdu, October 19; (Xinhua News Agency) - The on-going third railway construction drive is expected to bring new hope to the economic development of the land-locked southwest china.With rich agricultural and mineral resources and home to over 1,300 state-owned large and medium-sized enterprises, southwest including sichuan, yunnan, guizhou, guangxi, and tibet is known as an "important rear-area" for china's economy. but, the economic potential of the region is yet to be brought into full play due partly to inadequacy in railways. During the third railway construction drive of the eighth five-yearplan period (1991-1995), the central government started several major rail construction projects, including the trunk line between nanning, capital of guangxi, and kunming, capital of yunnan; the double-tracking of the rail between baoji, in shaanxi province and chengdu, capital of sichuan; and the electrification of chengdu-kunming railway. The projects are designed to not only remarkably increase the transportati

on capacity, but also to connect the region with euro-asia continental bridge in the north and with the sea in the south, thus help accelerating the opening-up of the region. Different from in the past, the present construction drive not only received funding from the central but also the local governments, according to regional authorities.