Growing rail system set to further expand by 4,000km

BEIJING: China plans to spend 732 billion yuan (RM453.5bil) on railway projects in 2018 to continue building its world-leading rail system, said Lu Dongfu, general manager of China Railway Corp, the nation’s railway operator.

Some 4,000km of new tracks are planned to be put into operation in the coming year, and 87.5% or 3,500km will be high-speed railway tracks, Lu said during the company’s annual meeting.

“Between 2013 and 2017, China spent 3.9 trillion yuan (RM2.4 trillion) on railway projects, making it a record period for intensive, mass investment on the railway system,” he said. During those years, 29,400km of new tracks were built, and more than half – 15,700km – were for high-speed trains.

Last year alone, China spent 801 billion yuan (RM496.2bil) on railways and put 3,038km of new track into operation, meeting its annual targets for the year of 800 billion yuan (RM495.5bil) of investment and 2,100km of new lines.

The investment has paid off. By the end of 2017, the nation’s rail system had reached a total length of 127,000km, including 25,000km of high-speed tracks, which is 66.3% of the world’s total of high-speed railways.

The opening last year of two new high-speed lines marks significant progress in the construction of China’s major high-speed railway network of four north-south routes and four east-west ones. Other highspeed stretches also opened in 2017.

China’s railways are forecast to handle 3.25 billion passenger trips this year, which would be an increase of about 6.9% from 3.04 billion in 2017. Last year, more than half of the trips, or 1.71 billion, were made by bullet trains. — China Daily/Asia News Network