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Authorities in east China's Zhejiang Province have outlined plans for investing at least 150 billion yuan (US$18.5 billion) in railway development in the next five years.

The money, a joint investment by Zhejiang government and the Ministry of Railways, will be spent on upgrading existing tracks and building new ones during the current Five-Year Guidelines (2006-10) period, officials from the Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission said recently.

"The new railway plan will greatly accelerate the integration of cities in the Yangtze River Delta Region and speed up its economic development," said Wang Shuhua, a senior official from the Zhejiang Railway Office under the commission.

The blueprint outlines 16 projects to transform the Yangtze Delta railway system into a world-class network. These include:

Construction of high-speed inter-city lines connecting major cities in the delta

Electronic renovation of the Shanghai-Hangzhou line and the Hangzhou-Zhuzhou line, a key east-west route between Zhejiang and Hunan provinces, to be completed this year

New double-track line connecting Zhejiang and Anhui provinces

Construction of a new line between Wenzhou and Fuzhou, Fujian Province.

Construction of a line connecting Ningbo and Wenzhou, scheduled to be completed in 2010

The construction of the high-speed railway linking Hangzhou and Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, is expected to start at the end of this year, and the service should begin operation before 2010, said Wang.

Upon completion, the travel time between Hangzhou and Nanjing will be shorten to about one hour, Wang said.

According a blueprint, which has been approved by the State Council, five high-speed railways will link 10 big cities in east China in the coming years.

By then, the dream of the "one-or-two-hour economic circle," referring to a rapid transit system that can bring people from one city in the delta region to another in just one or two hours, will be realized.

Experts hailed the plan as a milestone in the development of the Yangtze River Delta Region.

"Upon completion, the high-speed railways connecting the Yangtze River Delta Region to the outside, places such as the Pearl River Delta, will bring more opportunities for co-operation in economic and social areas," said Qiu Zhicheng, an expert from the Yangtze River Delta International Research Centre of Zhejiang University.

Commuters will be able to travel easily between these areas, which means more people can do business, said Qiu.

"The successful mode of economic and industrial development in the two deltas will effectively be introduced and applied to other regions with the help of the railway."

Qiu noted that China's railway transportation capacity still lags far behind the demand caused by rapid economic and social development.

As a result, the overburdened railway system has curbed the development of China's two economic engines, the Yangtze and Pearl River Delta Regions.

"High-speed railways will eventually become dominant in the Yangtze Delta, where the economy will be accelerated by an efficient transport network," said Qiu.

(China Daily May 23, 2006)