When former US President Bill Clinton paid a State visit to China in 1998, he stopped first at Xi'an to visit the terracotta warriors before moving on to Beijing.

Millions of other foreign visitors could follow in his footsteps when they visit China next year around the time of the Olympic Games, and in the opinion of Yuan Chunqing, governor of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the more visitors, the better.

"We welcome all travellers and will try to improve our infrastructure and services for them," the governor said in an interview during the annual session of the National People's Congress yesterday in Beijing.

He said the project to expand Xianyang International Airport, located in the provincial capital of Xi'an, would start this year. A new runway and a new terminal are in the works.

The 8 billion yuan ($1.03 billion) expansion project will enable the airport to handle more than 16 million passengers per year, about 6 million more than its current capacity, the governor said.

In addition, more than 400 kilometers of new speedways are to be built in the province this year, and another 2640 kilometers of railways are expected to be completed by 2010.

"With these projects, travellers will have little difficulty with traffic," Yuan said.

Official figures show that Shaanxi had about 71 million travellers last year, and 1 million of them were foreigners.

"We expect the number of foreign visitors to grow at an annual rate of 15 percent in coming years," Yuan said.

The governor also said the renovation of the Famen Temple, renowned as the repository of a finger bone of the Sakyamuni Buddha, was expected to end next year, in time for the Olympic Games.

A new 138-meter-high pagoda will be built at the temple to house the finger bone. The temple is in Famen Town of Fufeng County, about 120 kilometers west of Xi'an.

Local media reported last month that the temple had decided to hire translators as well, aiming to provide better service for foreign visitors.

The governor yesterday also rejected a rumour that the province would excavate the 1,300-year-old tomb of Wu Zetian, the only empress in Chinese history.

"Shaanxi doesn't have any such plan and actually has never appealed to open Qianling," he said.

Located 80 kilometers northwest of Xi'an, Qianling is the joint tomb of Wu, who was in power for 50 years, and her husband, Emperor Li Zhi, of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).

It is the best-preserved ancient tomb in China and has never been looted. Rumours that the tomb is to be excavated surface from time to time.

Yuan said the province had had plenty of historic sites, such as the site of the terracotta warriors, the ancient city wall and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and efforts should be made to better preserve them.

He said Shaanxi also had beautiful natural scenery.

"People always think about Southwest China's Sichuan Province for pandas," the governor said. "But don't forget, of the 1,500 pandas in the world, 400 are here in Shaanxi."

(China Daily 03/07/2007 page5)