Construction of Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway to start this year
12/3/2007 16:13
Construction of the high-speed railway between Beijing and Shanghai,
currently awaiting green light from the National Development and Reform
Commission (NDRC), will start this year, a Chinese lawmaker said in Beijing
today. "The NDRC is reviewing the feasibility report of the project... It
will get approved sooner or later this year," Lang Guoping, deputy head of the
preparation team with the Beijing-Shanghai passenger line company, said on the
sidelines of the fifth session of the National People's Congress (NPC). Once
completed, trains on the express railway will reach speeds exceeding 350
kilometers per hour, shortening the nine-hour trip to five hours. Lang, an
NPC deputy, said the railway is designed to serve 100 years and the construction
"has no technological problems." More than eighty percent of the high-speed
trains will be manufactured in China and only 10 to 15 percent of trains will be
imported, Lang said. China has set up joint ventures with Siemens of Germany,
Alsthom of France, Bombardier of Canada and Kawasaki Machinery Industrial Co of
Japan to produce the trains. Early reports said that the construction of the
express railway, which was supposed to start last year, was delayed because the
original budget underestimated the cost of construction by more than 50
percent. Lang dismissed such reports, saying that "there is no problem with
construction funds." But he didn't elaborate. The trains now in service
between China's two largest municipalities have speeds between 140 and 160
kilometers per hour.
Xinhua
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