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JINAN, April 29 (Xinhua) -- China's leading new energy vehicle maker BYD will set up a monorail train production base and launch a tourist monorail line in east China's Shandong Province.

According to an agreement recently signed between BYD and the government of Jining city, the 35-km-long cloud rail connects Qufu, the hometown of Confucius with Zoucheng, the birthplace of Mencius.

Confucius and Mencius were both Chinese thinkers more than 2,000 years ago.

The total investment for the first phase is 8 billion yuan (1.16 billion U.S. dollars). The rail, or called Yungui, will be completed in September next year.

Monorail trains can run at a maximum speed of 80 km per hour. Compared with subways, overground monorail costs less and is less noisy.

The Qufu-Zoucheng monorail will be convenient for tourists and residents to travel between the two cities, said Feng Jialei, head of the Jining Investment Promotion Bureau.