China will build a railway linking Beijing to the southeastern province of Fujian to boost the economic development of the coastal region close to Taiwan.

The two-track railway would be able to accommodate trains running at more than 300 kilometers per hour. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2010, under a memo signed by the Ministry of Railways and the Fujian Provincial People's Government in Beijing during the on-going parliamentary session.

The railway will start from Bengbu City in eastern Anhui Province, where it will also join the Beijing-Shanghai Railway.

It will then cross Anhui and Jiangxi provinces via Hefei, Huangshan and Shangrao before entering Fujian, where it will terminate in Fuzhou, the provincial capital.

The line is part of a 4,800-km rail network that China plans to build along the western coast of the Taiwan Straits over the next five to 10 years. Fujian, just across the straits from Taiwan, has begun to build a new economic zone that is intended to accelerate cross-straits economic ties.

The zone, also covering parts of the neighboring provinces of Jiangxi and Guangdong, is part of the country's regional development strategy for coastal China. The Pearl River Delta in the south, the Yangtze River Delta in the east and the economic zone around the Bohai Sea have already become development engines.

(Xinhua News Agency, March 12, 2008)