In 2016, China’s railway investments reached CNY 801.5 billion (USD 116.6 billion), the Ministry of Transport (MOT) announced. The country’s fixed-asset investment in transport was CNY 2.85 trillion (USD 413 billion). Fixed-asset investment included capital spent on infrastructure, property, machinery and other physical assets.
According to “Development of China’s Transport”, released in December, until 2020, China plans to invest CNY 3.5 trillion (USD 509 billion) in railway projects, with a HSR network of 30000 km, connecting more than 80 percent of its big cities
In 2016, four major high speed lines were opened,bringing the total distance covered by the nation’s high-speed rail network to more than 22,000 km. China Railways Corp, this accounts 60 percent of the high-speed rail networks.
The four lines are: the Zhengzhou-Xuzhou railway connecting central and East China; the Chongqing-Wan-zhou railway, the first high-speed railway to enter the Three Gorges area; the Kunming-Guiyang railway which links Shanghai and Kunming; and the Kunming-Baise railway, connecting Kunming and Guangzhou.
The Kunming-Guiyang railway, is part of the Shanghai-Kunming line, and at 2252 km it is the longest of China’s east-west rail lines.
“Only two sections of the north-south and east-west high-speed railway grid have not yet opened－the lines between Jinan and Shijiazhuang and between Baoji and Lanzhou. At the current rate of progress, we expect to fulfill our target before 2020, much earlier than scheduled,” Yang Hao, a professor of rail transport management at Beijing Jiaotong University said.
In 2016, 2.77 billion trips were made on China’s railways, including 1.44 billion trips by high-speed trains, which is more than 52 percent of the total.
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