China is offering not just to build a railroad in California but also to help finance its construction, said David Crane, the governor?s special adviser for jobs and economic growth, and a board member of the California High Speed Rail Authority.

China is not the only country interested in selling high-speed rail equipment to the United States. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Spain, France and Italy have also approached California?s High Speed Rail Authority.

The agency has made no decisions on whose technology to choose. But Mr. Crane said that there were no apparent weaknesses in the Chinese offer, and that Governor Schwarzenegger particularly wanted to visit China this year for high-speed rail discussions.

The railways ministry has concluded a framework agreement to license its technology to G.E., which is a world leader in diesel locomotives but has little experience with the electric locomotives needed for high speeds.

According to G.E., the agreement calls for at least 80 percent of the components of any locomotives and system control gear to come from American suppliers, and labor-intensive final assembly would be done in the United States for the American market. China would license its technology and supply engineers as well as up to 20 percent of the components.

International rail experts say that China has mastered the art of building high-speed rail lines quickly and inexpensively.

The California rail authority plans to spend $43 billion to build a 465-mile route from San Francisco to Los Angeles and on to Anaheim that is supposed to open in 2020. The authority?s plans call for $10 billion to $12 billion in private financing. Mr. Crane said China could provide much of that, with federal, state and local jurisdictions providing the rest.

Source : Konaxis

Three network routes have been slated for implementation. One would connect Beijing to London via the channel Tunnel and potentially onwards to Singapore. The second would traverse through Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia while the third would connect China to mainland Europe including Germany and Russia. Wang advised that all three are hoped to be completed over the course of the next ten years, with the Chinese rail industry already in negotiations with the seventeen countries which feature in the new venture.

According to Chinese domestic railway senior spokesperson Wang Mengshu, the stated goal is to introduce trains which can make international travel in the same time as planes.

Wang claimed that the idea was first mooted by countries outside of China, notably India, who were keen to take advantage of the booming superpower. Domestically, China has been growing its own rail network at a rapid pace, with all major cities in the country scheduled to be connected by high speed rail links in the next five years, with some 30,500 km of track to be laid in that time.

Source : Konaxis

Earlier in January, Chinese Railways Minister Liu Zhijun said that in the next three years, China will see 26,000 kilometers railways put into use, and among them 9,200 kilometers will be high-speed.

The cost for building a kilometer of high-speed railway is about 100 million yuan, and the investment in the network for the next three years will amount to more than 900 billion yuan.

According to a railway blueprint, China will have four east-west high-speed railway lines and four south-north lines.

Source : Konaxis

The journey previously took at least 11 hours. The new train service will run 56 times a day.

The Harmony express, which reached a top speed of 394km per hour in pre-launch trials, travelled at an average rate of 350km per hour on its debut. This compared with a maximum service speed of 300km per hour for Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains and France’s TGV service.

According to state media reports, the government spent $17bn on the Harmony express line’s construction over 4½ years.

Ticket prices have been set at CNY780 for first class and CNY490 for second. The country’s airlines have responded by slashing fares to undercut those for the new train.

Huang Xin, head of passenger services for Guangzhou Railway Group, said on the inaugural ride that pricing might have to be adjusted.

Even the second-class fares may prove too rich for the biggest pool of potential passengers for the line, the estimated 20m workers in the Pearl River delta manufacturing belt around Guangzhou who hail from inland provinces. About half of them usually return home during the Chinese new year holiday.

Another disadvantage of the new service is that the stations at each end of the line are at least an hour’s drive from their respective city centres.

In total, the railways ministry intends to complete 18,000km of high-speed rail lines by 2012, allowing passengers to travel between most Chinese provincial capitals in eight hours or less.

Source : Konaxis

The company, which supplies rail cars used in Beijing’s subway, will sell 2.5 billion A shares, or 30.12% of its enlarged share capital, at 5 yuan to 5.56 yuan apiece, China CNR said in a statement filed to the Shanghai stock exchange.

The company said 40 percent of the new shares would be offered to institutional investors while the remaining 60 percent would be allotted to the retail portion.

China International Capital Corp, Huatai Securities Co and Huarong Securities Co are reportedly the joint underwriters of the IPO.

The government will spend 5 trillion yuan to build more than 18,000 kilometers (11,185 miles) of high-speed rail lines by 2020.

Source : Konaxis

Najib did not give details of the project but it was earlier reported that the track would run 197km and costs RM7.5 bil (USD 2.07 bil).

The contract involves building a new railway parallel to the existing railway from Gemas to Johor Baru to improve the national rail network service.

The two leaders also witnessed the signing of five agreements. There was one on higher education and another between the Malaysian government and the Beijing Enterprises Water Group to improve the country’s sewerage services.

There were also two on loans, as well as one between Bank Negara (the Malaysian central bank) and the China Banking Regulatory Commission on banking supervision, sharing of information and promotion of regional financial integration.

Some analysts said the agreement between Bank Negara and the Chinese banking commission was a likely prelude to China being granted a banking licence.

Source : Konaxis