Recently, the Ministry of Transport proposed that during the "15th Five Year Plan" period, efforts will be made to promote the connection and upgrading of national highways along the border, comprehensively connecting the G219 and G331 strategic land backbone channels along the border and the G228 coastal backbone channel. These three channels will form a large outer ring that connects the border and coastal areas, known as the "Golden Outer Ring".

The "Golden Outer Ring" has a total length of about 27000 kilometers, connecting the northern border, western border, and eastern coastal areas. Unlike ordinary transportation routes, the Ministry of Transport has assigned it a triple core positioning of tourism channel, resource development channel, and stable border channel.

Vice Minister of Transport Xu Chengguang stated that during the "15th Five Year Plan" period, the construction of cross regional and cross basin large channels will continue to be promoted. It is no longer as simple as "laying out stalls" and "launching projects" as in the past, but rather optimizing spatial layout, connecting the main arteries of economic circulation, and promoting regional balanced development. The 'Golden Outer Ring' is a representative project under this new construction concept.

Ronglv

The "Golden Outer Ring Road" is not a newly built highway from scratch, but an integrated construction based on the existing road network. After the entire line is completed, it will become a transportation artery connecting border areas and coastal urban agglomerations.

This large ring road relies on three national highways to form a closed loop. National Highway G331 starts from Dandong, Liaoning Province in the east and ends at Altay, Xinjiang in the west. It passes through six provinces and regions of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang, and connects with natural landscapes such as the Northeast Plain, Great and Small Xing'an Mountains, Inner Mongolia grasslands and Altai Mountains. National Highway G219 starts from Altay Kanas in Xinjiang in the north and ends at Dongxing in Guangxi in the south. It spans Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. It is the longest national highway in China at present. The G228 National Highway, which extends along the eastern coastline, runs through 10 provinces and municipalities including Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi.

Among them, Altay in Xinjiang, Dandong in Liaoning, and Dongxing in Guangxi are nodal cities. Three national highways connect at the beginning and end of these three cities, ultimately forming the 'Golden Outer Ring'.

Meng Qiang, the head of the Transportation and Tourism Integration Innovation Team and a senior engineer at the Highway Science Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, said in an interview with the Economic Observer that the core goal of the "15th Five Year Plan" to promote the construction of the Golden Outer Ring Road is to expand domestic demand and stimulate consumption. At present, self driving travel accounts for more than 70% of the total tourism travel in China, and the demand for self driving travel continues to rise. Upgrading the road network can not only meet the high-quality travel needs of the public, but also continue to drive consumption along the route due to the gathering of passenger flow. At the same time, many sections of G219 and G331 national highways are border defense roads, and national defense functions will also be taken into account in project planning and engineering design.

In addition, complex geology and frequent disasters have made the demand for stable and smooth road channels in border areas even more urgent. The western border areas have complex terrain and variable climate, with frequent disasters such as plateau permafrost, mountain landslides, flash floods, and mudslides. Some of the existing border roads have weak road conditions and insufficient disaster resistance. They are prone to breakage in extreme weather conditions, which not only affects daily travel and tourism, but also restricts material transportation and border channel security.

Recently, the traffic at Jilong Port was interrupted due to debris flow, which reflects that the road traffic in Xizang still needs to be improved. Therefore, the smooth and stable operation of the "Golden Outer Ring" is also a guarantee for the security and development of border areas.

Meng Qiang told reporters that there is currently no large proportion of open circuit gaps in the entire ring road, and the proportion of unfinished "breakpoint" roads is relatively low. The more common problem is that the road grades are relatively low, and although these sections have been opened to traffic, the road conditions, traffic capacity, and tourism facilities cannot match the national highway standards. Therefore, this round of construction no longer focuses on "building from scratch", the core is "upgrading and upgrading", comprehensively optimizing road grades, disease control, service support, and cultural tourism functions.

Among them, Yunnan, Guangxi, Xinjiang, Xizang and other provinces and regions have the largest proportion of road sections involved and the heaviest transformation task. According to the plan, during the 15th Five Year Plan period, the focus will be on opening up bottleneck sections of three national highways that cross mountains and seas, and a total of about 7400 kilometers of road sections will be upgraded.

In mid August, the Ministry of Transport also issued the "Implementation Plan for Boutique Self driving Tourism Highways", which clearly proposed to build the main framework of the "Third Ring, Fourth Horizontal, and Fifth Vertical" boutique self driving tourism road with a total mileage of about 60000 kilometers, mainly based on ordinary national highways. The "Golden Outer Ring", a coastal ring road along the border, will be included as the first part of the "Third Ring" of the national boutique self driving tourism road main framework. Therefore, the upgrading and renovation of the Golden Ring Road will take into account the construction requirements of tourist highways.

Meng Qiang said that compared with ordinary national highways, the differences of tourist highways are reflected in multiple aspects: in the main project, in addition to traditional roadbed, pavement, and security facilities, more attention will be paid to landscape design; The facilities in the service area no longer only meet basic needs such as parking and rest, but also add functions such as sightseeing, accommodation, and shopping. Conditional road sections can also incorporate intangible cultural heritage, characteristic events, local experiences, and other content.

In addition, some road sections will also add dedicated slow traffic systems to meet outdoor needs such as hiking and cycling; A systematic tourism signage, guidance, and commentary system is equipped with an intelligent management system to achieve intelligent information push and refined travel services.

Coordination

The "Golden Outer Ring" passes through more than ten provinces and regions, involving issues such as planning coordination, alignment standards, construction timing, and interest coordination between different administrative regions. Cross regional collaboration is an unavoidable problem. The economic development level of each province and region involved in the "Golden Outer Ring" varies, and the degree of importance and pace of project promotion are also different. In addition, some sections of the road involve complex geological conditions such as plateau permafrost and mountain canyons, involving technical difficulties and construction costs, which may become variables that affect the overall progress of the project.

Meng Qiang believes that after long-term technical research and practical exploration, there are no obvious obstacles in engineering construction. The real difficulty lies in the brand coordination and market synergy of tourist highways. Road construction has unified and standardized industry technical standards, and each province can ensure project connectivity by implementing the standards. However, brand building requires the establishment of an integrated overall concept.

Taking the G331 national highway as an example, this route spans six provinces and regions. In the future, it will create a "business card" similar to the US Route 66, making the public associate this highway with a complete ring road, rather than scattered sections belonging to each province. This requires planning unified signage and overall visual image, excavating and extracting unique features of each road section, and avoiding homogenization of promotion in different regions.

The market operation of the 'Golden Outer Ring' also requires cross regional collaboration. Few self driving tourists are able to complete the entire loop at once, and most people choose to travel in sections based on their own time and budget. This requires joint efforts with travel agencies and self driving tour organizations to develop self driving route products of varying lengths, including short distance routes lasting one or two days and long-distance routes lasting one or two weeks, connecting resources from various places along the route and enriching tourists' travel experiences. In short, the key to cross regional coordination lies not in engineering construction standards, but in brand integration and market collaborative operation.

The upgrading of the 7400 kilometer road section faces a core issue that cannot be avoided - where does the money come from? Behind the advancement of long-distance national highway projects, financial support is indispensable.

Yu Mingyuan, former director and second level researcher of the Highway Traffic Development Research Center of the Highway Science Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, told reporters that the funding sources for ordinary highways include construction funds and maintenance funds. The construction funds for national highways will receive certain vehicle purchase tax subsidies at the central level, while maintenance funds will mainly come from the return of refined oil taxes and fees, and the funds will be allocated to local governments in the form of central transfer payments. This funding is not sufficient to cover all maintenance needs, and the shortfall needs to be supplemented by local finance. For Xizang, Xinjiang, border areas and some of the previous contiguous poverty-stricken areas, the central finance will increase the funding tilt, and some regions can achieve full funding support.

Yu Mingyuan believes that the construction of national highways can theoretically introduce social capital, but in reality it faces the problem of insufficient attractiveness. Because ordinary national highways do not charge tolls, the derived economic benefits along the route are limited, and it is difficult for social capital to obtain stable returns, resulting in weak investment willingness.

However, the "Golden Outer Ring Road" has the attribute of a tourist road, and the project can significantly drive the development of scenic spots along the route. Social capital can collaborate with scenic spots along the route for joint development, and the income is not only from scenic spot tickets, but also includes income from accommodation, catering, and specialty consumption. If the plan is designed properly, social capital can obtain a certain profit share from this part of tourism revenue increase.

Meng Qiang believes that for tourism highways, an important direction in which social capital can participate is in service facilities such as stations and service areas, which can generate benefits. Introducing social capital for investment, construction, and operation in these areas can result in fully predictable returns.

Experience

At present, the cultural and tourism value and economic dividends of the "Golden Outer Ring" have been first released in some sections, among which the landing of the G331 National Highway Jilin section has certain reference significance.

The Jilin section of G331 National Highway will be fully connected by the end of September 2025, and the opening dividends will be concentrated during the National Day holiday that year. According to relevant data, as the southern starting point of the G331 Jilin section, Ji'an City, located at the southwest foot of Changbai Mountain, saw a year-on-year increase of 71% in the number of vehicles entering the city during last year's National Day holiday, which led to a 31.1% increase in the number of tourists to scenic spots along the route. The former transportation hubs of Baishan City and Jingyu County, relying on the location upgrade of the G331 self driving corridor, saw a year-on-year increase of 133% and 113.4% in tourism orders, respectively. The cultural and tourism economy of the counties along the route achieved breakthrough growth.

However, there are obvious seasonal operational pain points in this section - which is also common in the entire Northeast region - from November to May of the following year, due to the cold climate, the traffic conditions and cultural and tourism reception service capacity along the route will significantly decrease, and the operational shortcomings during the off-season will be more prominent.

In Meng Qiang's view, the key to the rapid release of cultural and tourism dividends in the G331 Jilin section lies in breaking away from the traditional thinking of "single road construction" and building a comprehensive transportation network of "fast forward roaming". When the highway is opened, it synchronously links with external transportation hubs such as high-speed rail and airports, opens exclusive tourism lines, and implements rental car policies; The service facilities for this section of the road include 8 service areas and multiple viewing platforms, balancing the functions of transportation with viewing, relaxation, and consumer experience.

In addition, a unified brand identity system has been established for this section, with exclusive signage covering core nodes such as service areas and observation decks. At the same time, it links with scenic spots and rural areas along the route to provide distinctive value-added services for passing tourists.

Yu Mingyuan believes that compared to ordinary trunk highways, border highways such as G219 and G331 are highly linked to the cultural and tourism industry. With the construction opportunity of the "Golden Outer Ring", various regions can fully improve their landscape supporting facilities and service facilities, and implement differentiated operation plans based on the characteristics of each road section.

However, the "Golden Outer Ring" is a medium - to long-term systematic project that requires adhering to the promotion logic of "ensuring smooth traffic first, and then optimizing services". On the basis of ensuring the main line's traffic capacity, supporting facilities along the route should be improved. Whether the experience of G331 Jilin section can be replicated in the northwest and southwest border areas of the northern and G219 national highways depends on whether the cultural and tourism supporting services can keep up. Local governments still need to continue exploring replicable profit models for tourism highways.

Meng Qiang also emphasized that the supporting construction in economically weak areas should still focus on revitalizing existing resources and supplemented by new construction increments at this stage. We should adhere to the principle of "market-oriented, supply according to demand" to avoid resource waste caused by one-way government investment. Service facilities can be classified and graded for layout. County towns can focus on setting up comprehensive self driving tour service centers, and remote road sections can be equipped with convenient facilities such as simple stations, parking areas, and observation decks as needed to ensure basic travel needs.

(Author Liu Yaning)