January transportation investment jumps by 40%, fuels recovery
China saw a robust investment in fixed assets in transportation in January this year, official data showed on Friday, showing an upward construction trend amid the background of the country’s economy recovery.
In January, there was 191.2 billion yuan ($29.56 billion) of investment in fixed assets in transportation, a year-onyear increase of 42.1 percent and increase of 13.8 percent compared to January 2019, Ministry of Transport said.
The construction of major transportation infrastructure has played an important role as a “ballast stone,” setting the stage for the resumption of work and production, Sun Wenjian, spokesperson of the ministry said at the conference.
The projects are in line with the blueprint released by the government on China’s comprehensive transportation network layout, as the country aims to build 200,000 kilometers of railways, 460,000 kilometers of highways, and 25,000 kilometers of high-level sea lanes by 2035.
“Railway infrastructure is a large investment that connects many industries, including real estate and manufacturing. It is estimated that the cost of running a 160-kilometer per hour high-speed train, including the cost of railway construction, is about 50 to 100 million yuan per kilometer. The pull of dayto-day revenues and spending on the economy is huge,” an engineer surnamed Kong at China Railway Urumqi Group, told the Global Times on Friday.
From the perspective of China’s economic development, and compared to the history of developed cities in the US and Japan, some Chinese cities have gradually become metropolitans. Considering the current state of technology, transportation between the central city and the satellite city will have to rely on rail, which is cheap, fast and has large capacity, according to Kong.
He added that in the future, there may be megacities of 100 million people in China. In fact, the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong is already on the horizon.