Zhejiang's urban railway gathers speed

Trips between Hangzhou and neighboring Huzhou in East China's Zhejiang province will be more convenient as a new urban railway between Yuhang district in Hangzhou and Deqing county in Huzhou is seeing accelerated steps toward operation.

China Railway 24th Bureau Group Corp Ltd (CR24), a unit of State-owned China Railway Construction Corp, said its team on the second bid of the Yuhang-Deqing Urban Railway is ramping up efforts on the building of a bridge on the railway and has completed the cement pouring work for the first bearing platform of the bridge, leaving a solid foundation for the rest of the construction.

With a designed maximum speed of 120 kilometers per hour, the second bid of the Yuhang-Deqing Urban Railway includes the construction of two stations and rails with a total length of 7.1 kilometers.

The railway aims to facilitate connectivity between the two cities and serve the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region. The project undertaken by CR24 has a total investment of 955 million yuan ($139.2 million), the contractor said.

"It is a rail being built with much effort, as the team faces many additional tasks and a tight schedule. We gave adequate training to the workers on the construction site and leveraged various solutions to guarantee safe and efficient building," said Liu Jianwei, a project manager with CR24.

Liu said: "Construction work has gathered much speed since the beginning of this year, thanks to many supportive measures.

"We can feel from the accelerated building progress that the supply chain and transportation have returned to normal. The construction team aims for earlier operation and has also ramped up efforts in recruitment and training to this end."

Considering its role of being a key link for the two cities in the future, Liu said his team "will go the whole hog this year" to advance the progress of the bid.

As a major pillar supporting the nation against headwinds in the past few years, infrastructure investment is still identified as a key driver for the nation's economy this year.

Apart from traditional infrastructure builders like CR24, those specializing in "new infrastructure" will also ramp up their efforts this year.

According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released during the two sessions, telecom operators will add 600,000 5G base stations this year, pushing up the total number to over 2.9 million nationwide. It will further expand the coverage of 5G services in rural areas and industrial parks.

Also, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the nation's Cabinet, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), SOEs will invest over 10 trillion yuan in more than 1,300"new infrastructure"-related projects across the country, injecting new impetus into efforts to sustain economic growth.

"This year's special bond was again issued ahead of schedule to play its significant role in meeting the demand of infrastructure projects nationwide and expanding effective investment, which has indicated the nation's resolve in stabilizing the economic momentum this year," Huang Weiping, an analyst with Industrial Securities, was quoted as saying in a report by news portal Jiemian.

Infrastructure still shoulders many key tasks this year, including expanding domestic demand, helping job seekers and giving impetus to the economy. It's even more urgent and necessary to enhance infrastructure, both in the traditional and 'new infrastructure' sectors, to support and gather speed for the transformation process, Huang added.