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China Constructs Longest Railways in Five-Year Period: Minister
The Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000) period has been the period in which the longest railways with the highest efficiency and best quality in the country were built, said Minister of Railways Fu Zhihuan Friday, December 22.
The total length of China's railway lines will be increased by 6,000 km to reach 68,000 km by the end of 2000, said Fu at the national railways work conference held in Beijing.
During the Ninth Five-Year Plan period, the value of completed capital construction in the railway industry was 245 billion yuan,double that in the Eighth Five-Year Plan period (1991-1995) said Fu at Friday's work conference.
In the past five years, China has built 5,800 km of railway lines and has electrified 4,300 km of existing lines. Of the new lines, 4,100 km are double-tracked, Fu added.
Statistics show that a turnover of 1,800 billion passenger-kilometers were completed in the five years, 14.2 percent higher than that of the Eighth Five-Year Plan period. The total distance in which cargo was transported was 6,409.1 billion-km, an increase of 7.3 percent.
The railway industry has also been transformed from a non-profiting one to a profiting one during the period. Railway revenue totaled 461.5 billion yuan, increasing by 71.4 percent.
According to Fu, to increase the market share of railway transport and meet market demands, three' speed-raises' were implemented for railway lines in China in 1997, 1998 and 2000.
The highest speed of passenger trains running on the Guanzhou-Shenzhen line is 200 km/h and the highest speed of passenger trains operating on the three trunk lines of Beijing- Guangzhou, Beijing-Harbin and Beijing-Shanghai is 160 km/h. The speed has been raised on nearly 10,000 km of railway lines.
As to the country's railway construction during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, Fu said that China will continue to enlarge the scale of the railway network, speed up railway construction in west China, and strengthen the railway network of the eight longitudinal and eight lateral lines.
The eight longitudinal lines are Beijing-Harbin, the corridor along the eastern coastline, Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Kowloon, Beijing-Guangzhou, Dalian-Zhanjiang, Baotou-Liuzhou and Lanzhou- Kunming.
The eight lateral lines are Beijing-Lanzhou, the north corridor for coal transport, the south corridor for coal transport,the Euro-Asia continental railway bridge, Nanjing-Xi'an, the corridor along the Yangtze River, Shanghai-Kunming and the southwest corridor leading to the ocean.
Fu predicted that China will have 75,000 km of railway in operation by 2005, with 25,000-km double-track lines and 20,000-km electrified railway.
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