China boosts world’s connectivity with high-speed railways

Infrastructure projects completed by China abroad over the past few years have greatly improved the world’s connectivity and brought big changes to the world, People’s Daily reports.

Roads, railways, bridges, vehicles and buildings built by China in Asia, Africa, Europe and America have played an increasingly important role in improving local economies and residents’ standards of living.

The Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), which was launched on May 31, is a modern railway built by China using Chinese standards, technology and equipment.

The railway is part of a railway network in East Africa which will connect Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. The total length of the railway, according to the long-term plan, will be about 2,700 kilometers.

The Chinese-built Ethiopia-Djibouti railway has also come into operation as the first electric railway in Africa.

In Europe, the Serbia-Hungary railway project has kicked off, and the Ankara-Istanbul high-speed railway in Middle East has been completed.

The feasibility study on a railway linking Brazil's Atlantic coast to Peru's Pacific coast has been launched.

In Asia, construction of the China-Laos railway is taking speed.

The World Bank released a report on China’s high-speed railways in July 2014,  saying that China’s high-speed railways are attractive in price and quality.

The report points out that the construction cost of high-speed railways in China are about two thirds of that in other countries, and the ticket price is only about 20 to 25 percent by comparison.

China’s high-speed railway system is well-known in the world for boasting advanced technologies with comprehensive independent intellectual property rights.

In 2015, the total length of the railway network in China reached 121,000 kilometers, the second in the world, among which 19,000 kilometers were high-speed rails, ranking the first in the world.

China is expediting planning and building of high-speed railways from Kunming to Singapore and from Urumqi to Germany.