Birth of an industrial giant

A high-speed train speeding up during its journey from Beijing to Shanghai.[Provided to China Daily]

Feng says the government has now prioritized the export of its rail industry, and developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States have shown strong interest in allowing Chinese rail companies to become involved in the servicing and upgrading of their rail infrastructure, working alongside local companies.

Wang Xianhong, the deputy Party secretary of Changchun, says a Russian delegation is due to visit soon to discuss cooperative details on a recently signed deal to build a 770-km high-speed line connecting Moscow and Kazan, a city on the Volga River.

Under the agreement, signed in September, the line will form the initial section of a railway stretching all the way to Beijing, with completion scheduled for 2018, in time for the World Cup soccer finals in Russia. Kazan is one of the host cities.

After being halted for more than 11 years, a new 460-kilometer rail road between Kunming and Hekou, a border county close to Vietnam in Yunnan province, began to operate on Nov 10 to replace the previous Yunnan-Vietnam Railway. That railway line was China's first international railway line, built by the French government in the early 1900s.

Starting construction in 2009, the project was carried out by the China Railway First Group Co and the China Railway No 5 Engineering Group Co, with a total investment of 6.93 billion yuan from the former ministry of railways, which was renamed as the China Railway Corp in 2013.

Within its medium- and long-term economic plans, China has also included another three huge rail lines that will link the country to Southeast Asian nations, and engineers have already started preliminary work on the network, according to China Railway Corp.

The lines would start in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, and connect Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, linking with the southern part of the ambitious Trans-Asian Railway first proposed in the 1960s.

The network agreement was signed by 18 countries in 2006 and was highlighted within a blueprint for connectivity at the recent APEC conference held in Beijing.

The huge network aims to provide a continuous 14,000-kilometer rail link between Singapore and Istanbul in Turkey, with possible onward connections to Europe and Africa, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Zhao Jian, a professor of rail transportation at Beijing Jiaotong University, said the opportunities expected from the plans could be huge for China's soon-to-be formed CNR/CSR rail conglomerate.

Factbox

China North Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corp (CNR Corp)

Established: 2008

Revenue in 2013: 97.24 billion yuan

Overseas markets: 80 countries and regions

Status: Listed on the

Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges

Subsidiaries: 29

Employees: 89,000

Headquarters: Beijing

China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp Ltd (CSR Corp)

Established: 2007

Revenue in 2013: 97.9 billion yuan

Overseas markets: 83 countries and regions

Status: Listed on Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges

Subsidiaries: 20

Employees: 91,000

Headquarters: Beijing