China Railway is hopeful to hit 2017 contract target despite drop in overseas orders
The rail and infrastructure builder has signed new contracts worth less than half of its full year target in the first 6 months
“We do not expect to have problem reaching the goal,” Zhang Zongyan told reporters on Tuesday. “China still has huge room for infrastructure investment growth ... and we are pushing forward work to secure various overseas projects.
“China has 124,000 kilometres of railways, compared to 260,000 km in the United States ... in 2025, China’s planned railway is planned to rise to 175,000 km, and we are far behind the US in terms of highways and airports in operation.”
The state-backed company, which last Wednesday reported a 41 per cent year on year rise in net profit to 7.7 billion yuan for the year’s first six months, had signed 561.7 billion yuan worth of new orders in the period, up 34.5 per cent year on year.
That raised its backlog of uncompleted contracts by 8.2 per cent to 2.2 trillion yuan from the level at the end of last year.
But the volume of overseas new orders signed dropped 8.2 per cent year on year to 28.6 billion yuan in the six months.
Zhang said the decline was not out of the ordinary.