Full speed ahead for China’s fast rail network with US$112 billion investment
But railway operator will spend less on fixed assets than last year
China’s railway operator said heavy investment in its high-speed network would continue in 2018, although it plans to spend less on fixed assets than last year.
Despite the mountain of debt racked up by China Railway Corp through years of huge construction projects, analysts say the plan will help to offset a decline in property investment and to stabilise economic growth in the country.
The company has allocated 732 billion yuan (US$112.4 billion) for fixed-asset investment this year – less than the 801 billion yuan for 2017 but roughly in line with the average of the past five years, the company said at its annual conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
The funds will go to projects that are part of a national plan to extend China’s high-speed railway network to 30,000km by 2020, linking most of the big cities, general manager Lu Dongfu said. The plan is to have high-speed railway lines covering 38,000km across the country by 2025.
China’s high-speed railway network is already the biggest in the world at 25,000km, and many provincial capitals can be reached from Beijing within eight hours.
Lu said another 3,500km of high-speed railway lines would begin operating this year.
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Railways are a key area for the government to invest in as it tries to stabilise economic growth at a time when it has tightened regulation of the property market and put funding of public-private partnership projects under closer scrutiny.