The southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan will invest more than 50 billion yuan ($6.39 billion) in railways by 2010 as part of a scheme to link China with Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar, state media said on Wednesday.

"The massive investment will power several railway construction projects both inside the province and linking Yunnan to neighbouring regions," Xinhua news agency quoted Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun as saying.

"Yunnan is a gateway to South Asia and Southeast Asia," Liu added, without providing further details.

The province, with a population of 40 million, borders Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, the former Burma.

A line of more than 5,000 km (3,000 miles) starting in Yunnan's capital Kunming stretching down to Singapore and supposed to connect eventually to Europe was first proposed in 1995, though it has been slow to get off the ground.

China has also been investing in roads linking its landlocked and poor southwest with Southeast Asia, hoping to gain access to the region's ports and make it easier to take get timber and minerals back to feed the resource-hungry Chinese economy.

($1=7.823 Yuan)