China gets on board railway project to speed up economy
Friday, 5 December 2008
BEIJING, Dec 4 (AFP): Travelling at 330 kilometres an hour on one of China's fastest trains, businessman Ren Wenzuo had nothing but praise for a multi-billion-dollar plan to spin a web of new rail links across the country.
"People nowadays want to have convenient ways of travel, and with more fast trains across China, they will bring convenience to everyone," he said on board the service from Beijing to neighbouring Tianjin.
Ren, 47, said a work trip to Tianjin now took him one day to complete, compared with two before the new line was introduced in August, when the train service took twice as long.
More is to come as China recently approved a two-trillion- yuan (300 billion dollar) investment in its railway infrastructure over the next two years in a bid to spur growth in the face of the global economic crisis.
Longer term, China is aiming to have 120,000 kilometres (74,500 miles) of tracks laid down by 2020, up from 79,000 today, deputy railway minister Lu Dongfu told reporters last month.
Investing in infrastructure is a good way to spur growth amid the current economic woes, said Hu Xingdou, economics professor at the Beijing University of Technology.
"The drop in exports is a situation that is very hard to change, consumer demand cannot be spurred very quickly, so investing in infrastructure becomes quite an effective method," he said.
China's economy is slowing dramatically, with the World Bank predicting the country's growth rate will be just 7.5 per cent next year, the lowest in nearly two decades.
China made a similar move at the end of the 1990s amid the Asian financial crisis by investing heavily in the road network across the country.
The huge cash injection in the rail system is expected to boost employment and demand for raw materials, and promote real estate as land and towns near the new railways are also developed.
"People nowadays want to have convenient ways of travel, and with more fast trains across China, they will bring convenience to everyone," he said on board the service from Beijing to neighbouring Tianjin.
Ren, 47, said a work trip to Tianjin now took him one day to complete, compared with two before the new line was introduced in August, when the train service took twice as long.
More is to come as China recently approved a two-trillion- yuan (300 billion dollar) investment in its railway infrastructure over the next two years in a bid to spur growth in the face of the global economic crisis.
Longer term, China is aiming to have 120,000 kilometres (74,500 miles) of tracks laid down by 2020, up from 79,000 today, deputy railway minister Lu Dongfu told reporters last month.
Investing in infrastructure is a good way to spur growth amid the current economic woes, said Hu Xingdou, economics professor at the Beijing University of Technology.
"The drop in exports is a situation that is very hard to change, consumer demand cannot be spurred very quickly, so investing in infrastructure becomes quite an effective method," he said.
China's economy is slowing dramatically, with the World Bank predicting the country's growth rate will be just 7.5 per cent next year, the lowest in nearly two decades.
China made a similar move at the end of the 1990s amid the Asian financial crisis by investing heavily in the road network across the country.
The huge cash injection in the rail system is expected to boost employment and demand for raw materials, and promote real estate as land and towns near the new railways are also developed.