China’s bullet trains in race to win global high-speed rail market
Quality and communication are key if the nation is to win, say foreign visitors to state-owned factory
Giant factories, a wide range of advanced locomotives and a modern exhibition centre may have impressed foreign visitors to one of China’s biggest bullet train producers – but it will take more than that to clinch deals.
China is at an early stage of its push to export its high-speed rail technology, and there is much Beijing needs to address.
Officials from nearly 20 developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America visited the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation’s (CRRC) Tangshan factory last month in a week-long programme arranged by the Hong Kong-based Finance Centre for South-South Cooperation.
Most came from countries along the route of China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative aimed at boosting trade links and infrastructure such as railways.
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The overseas market for CRRC Tangshan is chiefly low- to medium-speed rail stock, railways and light rail systems that have been sold to Germany, Turkey and some African countries. It accounts for 30 per cent of the global locomotive market. But while the countries of most of the visitors have imported rail technology from China, including CRRC Tangshan, few have imported Chinese high-speed know-how.