CHINA is racing to expand its metro lines as urbanization increases, creating business opportunities for domestic and overseas subway equipment and car manufacturers.
Of 43 Chinese cities with a population exceeding one million, 30 have applied to build metro lines, said officials with the Urban Rail Transit Committee under the China Communications and Transportation Association.
Meanwhile, the State Council has given approval to 15 cities to start metro construction and more cities will be given the green light in the near future, committee officials said.
"Demand for efficient and green public transport is increasing in metropolises like Shanghai and Beijing as well as in fast growing second-tier cities," said Zhou Yimin, vice director of the urban rail transit committee. "The next 10 years will see a big jump in metro line construction." About 600 billion yuan (US$78 billion) is expected to be invested in building subways and light rails before 2010, when the total length of subway lines will surpass 1,500 kilometers, according to the committee.
Investment totaled 200 billion yuan in the five years ended 2005, the committee said. The metro boom is good news for subway-car and equipment makers, including global names such as Siemens AG, Alstom SA and Bombardier Inc.
Companies cooperating with local firms have sold subway cars to China, including units with the advanced automatic driving system that allows the trains to be operated without a driver. About 4,500 metro cars with internationally advanced technology are now in use.
Leading companies will show off the latest technologies and products at Metro China 2007, to be held at Shanghai New International Expo Center from June 12 to June 14.
Domestic technologies have progressed rapidly in recent years and Chinese manufacturers are capable of completing up to 70 percent of the components in a metro car. Leading domestic subway-car makers include Shanghai Rail Traffic Equipment Development Co, China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corp and China Northern Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corp.
"With increasing experience, the cost of metro projects has largely dropped," Zhou said.
When Shanghai and Guangzhou each built their first metro line in 2000, the cost was 700 million yuan per kilometer, compared with 500 million yuan per kilometer now, he said. The price of a large subway car is now eight million yuan to nine million yuan, a drop from 12 million yuan years ago, he added. The price of small cars is about 5.5 million yuan to six million yuan now.
"Fund raising could be a future bottleneck for the development of the nation's metro lines," Zhou said. Most of the funds will be channeled from local governments. No private investors are willing to pour money into projects that usually generates losses, he said.
"In the early days, the German government offered small loans to support the first metro line in Shanghai and Guangzhou in exchange for purchasing their metro equipment, which is usually more expensive than the global average," Zhou said. "It added to our costs, but now we fund the projects on our own."
Twenty-one metro lines now operate in 10 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Changchun, Dalian, Chongqing and Nanjing. The total length of subway lines in use was 585.83 kilometers at the end of last year.
Shanghai ranked No. 1 with 145 kilometers of subway tracks in operation, followed by Guangzhou with 116km, Beijing with 114km and Tianjin with 77.3 kilometers, the committee said. Shanghai will add another 65 kilometers of track this year and Beijing will add more than 30 kilometers.
"China is building the world's biggest metro system as much of the population is being diverted to the outskirts of metropolises. It's creating demand for fast transport links from the suburbs to downtown," Zhou said.
Shanghai plans to complete 12 urban rail lines with a total length of more than 500 kilometers by 2010, said Gu Weihua, vice president of Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co, a government-backed builder and operator of subways. Total investment on the 12 lines will be about 200 billion yuan. The city also plans to construct another 780 kilometers in 20 to 30 years.
Between 1.8 million and two million passengers use the metro in Shanghai and Beijing each day. "Metro passengers in Shanghai now account for 15 percent of all public transport users," Gu said. "The percentage will rise to 45 to 50 percent in the future." China's first metro line was in Beijing in 1969.
Source:佚名