TAIYUAN - North China's Shanxi Province will spend 100 billion yuan (about $15.2 billion) on building expressways this year, according to the provincial transportation bureau.

This will bring Shanxi's total expressway coverage to 5,000 km by the end of this year.

An official with the bureau said that 23 expressway projects covering 1,600 km will be under construction this year, and 17 of these projects will be completed by the end of 2012.

The resource-rich province plans to build a network of expressways linking neighboring Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu provinces and extending highways to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.

By 2011, there were 4,000 km of expressways in the province, and this total will grow to 6,300 km by 2015.

The province aims to extend its expressway network to all cities and counties within the province by 2015.