Economic cuts to slow down China’s high-speed rail network
May 4th, 2011 - 2:23 pm ICT by ANINew Delhi, May 4 (ANI): China may cut its investment in railway infrastructure this year by more than 31 billion dollars (200 billion yuan) following an earlier decision to slow down the operating speed of its high-speed trains.
The Beijing based newspaper Economic Observer reports that the Ministry of Railways had organized meetings in recent days and had invited experts and officials to discuss whether it was still necessary to begin work on railway projects that had not yet started.
An anonymous source said the discussions ended in agreement that this year’s investment in the construction of railway infrastructure would be slashed by 200 billion yuan from the planned 700 billion.
The news report went on to say that some high-speed railway projects would be scrapped, but it said the ministry was awaiting the experts’ opinions on which ones could be cut without affecting the network’s efficiency, Xinhua reports.
A publicity official with the Ministry of Railways said on Tuesday that the amount of money mentioned in the report was “inaccurate”, but declined to elaborate and would not confirm or deny whether total investment would be cut this year.
According to the newspaper, new Railways Minister Sheng Guangzu, who took over from former minister Liu Zhijun on February 25, had long wanted to reduce investment in new railway projects. (ANI)
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