A railway linking Quzhou and Changshan in east China's Zhejiang
Province, the first railway funded in part by private investment
since 1949, began operating on Friday.
With a length of 41 km, the feeder railway would be used mainly
for cargo transport, said Wang Feng, deputy chief of the Shanghai
Railways Administration.
Quzhou-Changshan railway would be included as a section of
another planned trunk railway linking Quzhou to Jingdezhen and
Jiujiang, both cities in east China's Jiangxi Province.
The Quzhou-Jingdezhen-Jiujiang railway was an important link,
joining major railways in China, including the Beijing-Kowloon line
between the capital and Hong Kong.
Construction on the Quzhou-Changshan line began in November 2005
and was completed at a cost of 675.1 million yuan (84.39 million US
dollars).
Funding was provided by the Shanghai Railways Administration,
Changshan County State-Asset Operation and Management Co. Ltd.,
Zhejiang Provincial Railways Investment Group Co., and Changshan
Cement Co., Ltd., a private business.
Changshan Cement, which has a materials production base in
Changshan, holds an 18.88-percent stake in the railway.
Wang said Quzhou-Changshan railroad was a tiny section out of
China's massive railway network, but it served as a milestone in
the country's efforts to reform financing for railway
construction.
Previously, railway investment in China had long been
monopolized by governments at central and local levels.
After the private investment in Quzhou-Changshan railway was
published in February 2005, the preparatory group for construction
of the Wuhan-Guangzhou passenger express rail in June 2005
announced that they would raise 24 billion yuan (three billion US
dollars) from home and abroad to build the trunk line.
The funds would make up about 20 percent of the 116.6 billion
yuan (14.58 billion US dollars) needed to finance the
Wuhan-Guangzhou passenger express line, while the Ministry of
Railways would provide 51 percent, and local governments in the
three provinces of Guangdong, Hunan and Hubei would cover the
remainder.
When the express railway is put into service, a trip from Wuhan
to Guangzhou will take four hours, compared with seven at present,
and the Beijing-Guangzhou trunk railway line will only handle cargo
services.
The Chinese mainland had 76,600 km railways in service last
year, ranking third in the world by length after the United States
and Russia.
In accordance with a blueprint for medium and long-term
development of railway networks approved by the State Council,
100,000 km of railways will be in operation by 2020.
It is estimated that in the next 15 years, two trillion yuan
(250 billion US dollars), or 100 billion yuan (12.5 billion US
dollars) a year, will be spent on construction of railway networks
in China.
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2007)
