Xinhua News Agency quoted quotes from an interview with Partner Li Zhiyong of Zhiming Law Firm.

At the beginning of this year, Li Zhiyong, a partner at Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm, was interviewed by media reporters when applying for government information disclosure regarding highway toll charges. Recently, Xinhua News Agency once again quoted Attorney Li Zhiyong’s interview remarks in an article titled “Where Did Over 400 Billion Yuan in Highway Tolls Go in a Year—Is It Really Just for ‘Loan Repayment’?”

In response, Lawyer Li Zhiyong stated: “What I said to reporters when I applied for the disclosure of Guangdong highway toll information earlier this year was quoted about ten months later in a Xinhua News Agency report questioning highway tolls. Although it was not verbatim, the meaning was the same: to prevent highways from becoming cash cows. I also advocate the gradual elimination of highway tolls.”

I'm ready to help translate your Chinese legal content into professional English for the Shenzhen Zhiming Law Firm website. Please provide the Chinese text you'd like me to translate.Article: Where Did Over 400 Billion Yuan in Highway Tolls Go in a Single Year? Is It Really Just for "Loan Repayment"?

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, November 30 (Xinhua Viewpoint reporters Ye Qian and Wei Shengyao) - The Shandong transportation authorities recently announced that 15 expressways (sections) whose toll collection periods were set to expire by the end of 2014 will continue to charge tolls, with the primary reason being to repay bank loans.

Shandong is not the first province to postpone the toll deadline. Previously, Xinjiang and other regions also extended toll collection on expired highways. It is reported that toll highways, which emerged in the 1990s, will usher in a peak of toll expiration. Based on the mileage completed by 2000, approximately 16,000 kilometers of toll highways will expire within the next two years. Whether these roads will all continue to extend toll collection has attracted widespread attention.

Currently, over 90% of the country's 10,000 kilometers of expressways are tolled. Experts estimate that the annual toll revenue from expressways nationwide exceeds 400 billion yuan. For these expressways, often dubbed "money printing machines," does the excuse of "unpaid loans" to justify extending toll collection hold up? And where does the collected money actually go?

Question: Isn't the compensation enough? Investigation: Enterprises are "raking in huge profits" as low-margin public utilities transform into high-profit industries

The Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway is hailed by the industry as a “model sample of China’s expressways.” As a key transportation route connecting Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway, which opened to traffic in 1997, is a for-profit toll road operated through a joint venture between a Hong Kong-funded enterprise and a subsidiary of the state-owned Guangdong Provincial Transportation Group. The expressway is 122 kilometers one way, with a toll of 70 yuan. The annual report of Hopewell Holdings Limited, a Hong Kong joint venture partner of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway, shows that toll revenue reached 3.169 billion yuan in 2013, averaging 8.7 million yuan per day. In sharp contrast to the high tolls, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway is widely criticized by drivers for its poor quality.

So, how much revenue do toll highways across the country generate in a year? In 2010, the relevant authorities disclosed that national toll road fees had reached 280 billion yuan. No further figures have been made public since then. However, information released by the Ministry of Transport shows that during four holiday periods—National Day in 2012 and Spring Festival, Qingming, and “May Day” in 2013—a total of 14.308 billion yuan in passenger car tolls was waived nationwide. Based on this, experts estimate that toll revenue on highways nationwide now exceeds 400 billion yuan annually.

Data released by the transportation authorities in Shandong Province shows that in 2013, government loan-repayment expressways collected a total of 10.4 billion yuan in tolls, which does not even include the tolls from operating highways, which account for about 40 percent. In Guangxi in the western region, total toll revenue also reached 8.48 billion yuan.

In Guangdong, where almost all highways are for-profit, the toll revenues of several roads are enormous. The semi-annual report for 2014 of Guangdong Provincial Expressway Development Co., Ltd. shows that toll revenues from nine expressway sections, including Guangzhou-Foshan, Foshan-Kaiping, and Huiyan expressways, reached about 2.6 billion yuan in the first half of the year.

Behind these hefty toll fees lie the astonishing profits of the operating companies. The annual report of Guangdong Provincial Expressway Development Co., Ltd., which primarily operates the Guangzhou-Foshan and Foshan-Kaiping expressways, shows that the company's net profit margin reached 26% in the first half of this year. The annual reports also reveal that companies such as Shenzhen Expressway, Shandong Expressway, and Chengyu Expressway all have profit margins mostly above 30%. This level of profitability even surpasses industries such as finance and real estate.

So why has the highway sector, which should have been a low-profit public welfare project, become a hugely profitable industry? A project manager at a Guangdong road and bridge company told reporters that, on the one hand, China's highway toll standards are generally high, with per-kilometer prices even higher than those in many developed countries; on the other hand, when the toll system was designed back then, no one anticipated today's enormous traffic volume.

Currently, tolls for Class 1 vehicles with 7 seats or fewer range from 0.4 to 0.6 yuan per kilometer across the country, while those for Class 2 to Class 5 vehicles vary from 1 to 2 yuan. In Guangdong, the rate for Class 1 vehicles is 0.6 yuan. When the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway first opened, traffic was light, but today it handles 440,000 vehicle trips per day, which has generated substantial profits for the operating company.

Li Zhiyong, a lawyer at Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm, said that given current traffic volumes, all localities should reassess their toll standards to prevent expressways from becoming "money-siphoning roads," and must not allow the situation where "as soon as wheels roll, gold comes pouring in."

Given that China still has a long way to go in building its expressway network, experts caution that regulating expressway tolls should be prioritized. Wang Zechu, a counselor of the Guangdong Provincial Government, said that currently, local transportation departments and their subordinate enterprises hold a monopoly in the construction and management of expressways. Coupled with the contribution of road construction to GDP, local governments have an impulse to launch road projects, which also leads to poor returns on some roads. As a result, local authorities have no choice but to “set their sights on” highly profitable highways, hence toll extensions under various pretexts. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the scientific assessment of government decision-making to avoid falling into the vicious cycle of “building roads with loans and repaying them through tolls” due to excessive construction.

(Xinhua News, November 30, 2014)