China's major railway products supplier -- the China South
Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corporation (CSRGC) --
signed a development financial cooperative agreement in Beijing on
Monday with the China Development Bank. Over the next three years,
the bank will provide 15 billion yuan (US$1.86 billion) development
financial loan to support CSRGC's high-speed rail project that
plans to develop locomotives capable of speeds of up to 300
kilometers per hour.
Zhang Xinning, spokesman for CSRGC told Beijing Times
that the order for 120 high-speed trains for China's high-speed
railway has been signed. CSRGC sources have disclosed that its
subsidiary, the CNR Sifang Rolling Stock Research Institute, has
started construction of the 60 high-speed trains.
The trains built by CSRGC will be safer and more comfortable
than the Bombardier passenger coaches which are presently running
on the Beijing-Shanghai railway line, Zhang said.
The loan spells a formal take-off for the magnetic levitation
plan as well as a victory for China's domestic railway product
manufacturers against bigger international names.
CSRGC raked in a sales income of 78 billion yuan (US$9.66
billion) in 2005. It has been ranked the world's No.1 manufacturer
of electric locomotives and No.2 for diesel locomotives for two
consecutive years.
(China.org.cn by Wind Gu, January 25, 2006)