Time to ensure impressive speed and efficiency matched by quality

On the night of Jan 19, 1,500 workers in Longyan city, East China's Fujian province, joined three existing railways to a new railway linking Nanping and Longyan within nine hours, which attracted the attention and applause of Western media outlets. Zhongguowangshi.com, a website affiliated to Xinhua News Agency, comments:

Not for the first time, Western media outlets and Western readers have applauded "Chinese efficiency". Actually, from the one-night renovation work on an overpass in Beijing municipality, to the demolition of an overpass within eight hours in Nanchang, East China's Jiangxi province, many Chinese construction projects have impressed Western media outlets and Western readers.

It is praise we can be proud of. Forty years ago, when China launched reform and opening up, the country lagged so far behind Western countries that speeding up became the nationwide consensus. Now China is the world's second-largest economy and it continues to impress the world with its efficiency and achievements.

However, we should not blind ourselves to the problems awaiting solutions. For the past 40 years, China's development has followed a rather extensive mode of development and now it is time to make the mode more intensive.

The fact is that some domestic construction projects are still of poor quality.

Besides, some domestic infrastructure is not so convenient. For example, many passengers complain about having to spend too much time on transferring one flight to another in domestic airports.

Worse, some projects pursue economic growth at the cost of the environment.

All these problems must be solved. It is good we have high efficiency, the next thing to do is improve quality.