The Agricultural Development Bank of China, the country's rural policy bank, has strengthened its financial support for the construction of roads in the country's rural areas.

The bank's outstanding loans to

facilitate rural road development surpassed 254 billion yuan (about 36 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of October, up 28.5 billion yuan from the beginning of this year, hitting a record high.

The construction of rural roads provides a basic guarantee for advancing rural revitalization, contributing to the country's agricultural development, the improvement of the rural environment and the increase of farmers' income, according to the bank.

In the first 10 months, the bank issued about 46.69 billion yuan worth of loans for rural roads, soaring 94.14 percent from the same period a year earlier.