A new freeway opened to traffic in northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Sunday, which is expected to add wings to the economic development of this underdeveloped region.

The 117-kilometer-long freeway, linking the cities of Tongxin and Guyuan in southern mountainous area of Ningxia, is a part of the freeway from Fuzhou, capital of south China's Fujian Province, and Yinchuan, the regional capital.

The whole project is expected to finish before 2010.The central and Ningxia regional governments have jointly invested more than 16 billion yuan (2 billion U.S. dollars) since 2000 to improve the traffic conditions in this major habitat of China's Muslims.

So far, all the cities, counties and districts in Ningxia have built freeway.