Beijing – China’s newly-appointed railway minister has said the country will continue to develop its high-speed rail network as planned even after its former minister was ousted.
Sheng Guangzu, who took office on Feb 25 to replace former railway minister Liu Zhijun, made the remarks on Saturday when responding to questions whether China’s policy of high-speed rail development will change with Liu’s fall from grace.
Zhang Junbang, director of the Zhengzhou railway bureau, and a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), told China Daily that the plan for building high-speed railways in his bureau’s territory this year has not changed, and that a high-speed rail line linking Wuhan, capital of Central China’s Hubei province, and Shijazhuang, capital of North China’s Hebei province, will be completed by the end of this year.
Some believed the the ministry will not be able to pay back the huge loans it borrowed from banks for building the massive high-speed rail network, while others suspected the stunningly fast construction of high-speed railways might generate potential safety hazards.
As to the solvency of the ministry’s affiliated companies, Sheng said on Saturday that the 1.8-trillion yuan ($274 billion) debt used for building the country’s massive high-speed rail network was still “at a controllable level”.
The country has planned to expand its high-speed rail network to 13,000 km by 2012 and to 16,000 km by 2020.
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.
China Daily 07-03-2011
How different this approach is to the UK!
