Economy

Rail industry park looks to global market

By Bao Chang (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-09 16:46

BEIJING - While China is pulling ahead in the global race for high-speed railway construction, Changchun, the nation's main production site for locomotive and rolling stock, is increasing efforts to develop into a global railways transportation industry and export base.

"With the completion of China's largest railway industry park this year, we will make greater efforts to improve our production capability and efficiency to meet demand from both domestic and overseas markets," said Cui Jie, the Mayor of Changchun, Jilin province, during the annual national legislative meeting.

The railway industry park in Changchun, with investment from China Northern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation (China CNR), will start production by the end of this year and will manufacture 1,500 high-speed trains, 1,200 bullet trains and 3,000 subway trains each year, according to Cui.

Cui said the output value of the trains industry in the city is set to exceed 30 billion yuan ($4.57 billion) this year, nearly tripling from 2010. According to CIC Consulting, an industry research institution, by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) the value of railway production in Changchun will reach 100 billion yuan.

Currently, China CNR's production plant in Changchun supplies more than half of the domestic railway train market.

"With the unprecedented growth of urbanization and high-speed rail network construction, Changchun will soon become a base for the global railway industry," Cui said.

China has made great strides in the development of high-speed railway transportation in recent years. By 2012, four years after the nation began its first high-speed passenger service, the country's high-speed rail track will reach 13,000 kilometers (km), longer than the combined distance laid in the rest of the world.

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At the end of 2010, the network was already the world's longest at 8,358 km, of which 5,149 km were put into service in 2010.

The country will continue to develop its high-speed rail network as planned, according to China's newly appointed railway minister at the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Apart from domestic development, China also intends to tap the international high-speed rail market, the minister said.

The Ministry of Railways now has 16 work teams that look after overseas high-speed railway plans and coordinate Chinese enterprises to help them enter these markets.

Local media reported that China has proposed a high-speed railway network linking the country and Southeast Asia, including a line travelling through Laos, Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore, a line to Myanmar, and another to Cambodia.