HK trade expected to be hurt by line from Guangzhou Work will soon resume on the Guangzhou-Zhuhai railway, the last link in the Beijing-Zhuhai railway, six years after it was suspended over of a lack of funding and support for the project. 'Construction of the Guangzhou-Zhuhai railway will re-commence in March,' Zhuhai government secretary-general Li Ying said yesterday. Experts say the completion of the rail link poses a threat to Hong Kong because it will feed Li Ka-shing's container terminal at the port of Gaolan and reduce the flow of cargo to Hong Kong. Mr Li's Hutchison Delta Ports is building two 50,000-tonne terminals in Gaolan, with plans to build three to four 100,000-tonne terminals. 'If you look at it now, there is not enough cargo for the railway to carry but even Li Ka-shing is optimistic about Zhuhai's prospects. [The government] is using the railway to spur industrial development in the west,' said Sun Yat-sen University professor Zheng Tianxiang . 'Hong Kong will be marginalised because it has neglected developing rail transportation because of opposition from taxi operators. 'Cargo from the west is unlikely to be transported to Hong Kong via the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge so it will lose out.' Zhuhai itself has become a more attractive place for foreign investment, with contracted foreign investment rising 27.5 per cent last year and actual investment growing 37.5 per cent. People familiar with the railway project said the original investment was diverted to other projects such as the Zhuhai airport and the city's air show, but it had also failed to get the full support of the leadership. The project was revived in 2004 with strong support from the Guangdong government, which offered to jointly finance the 4.58 billion yuan project with the Ministry of Railways. The link, 132.7km long, will pass through Foshan, Nanhai, Shunde, Heshan, Jiangmen, Xinhui and Doumen, and terminate in Gaolan, with six stations along its length. It has been designed to allow trains to travel at 120km/h.
