China’s railway spending plummets as Beijing struggles to sustain momentum
- Railway spending in August plunged 27.1 per cent following a decade-long building spree which has given China two-thirds of the world’s high-speed rail tracks
- Railway fixed-asset investment was 449.6 billion yuan (US$63 billion) in the first eight months of 2019, a modest 2.5 per cent fall from the same period last year
China’s spending on railways, a key driver for growth in the last decade, tumbled in August – in part because all major towns are now covered by the country’s extensive railway network.
China’s economic planning agency said on Wednesday that railway fixed-asset investment was 449.6 billion yuan (US$63 billion) in the first eight months of this year, which marked a modest 2.5 per cent fall from the same period last year.
However, August alone marked a steep fall of 27.1 per cent compared to the same month in 2018, according to calculations by the South China Morning Post, based on the official data.
Meng Wei, a spokeswoman for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said that China was on schedule to achieve its whole-year target of 800 billion yuan (US$113 billion) in spending on railways. She added there was now an issue of whether China could find enough new railway projects when existing ones were completed.