China will establish 18 container distribution centers to form a cargo transport network composed of 16,000 km of railways by 2020, an official said in Nanjing on Saturday.

Wang Zhaocheng, vice minister of railways, said the project would help the country meet the surging demand of freight transport in the railway sector.

According to Wang, the 18 container distribution centers will be built in major coastal and inland cities, which will be linked by railroads capable of handling double-decker container trains.

Construction on the first center, based in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China, began in July this year. It is expected to go into operation in two years at a cost of 500 million yuan (US$60 million).

Experts say the Kunming center is expected to handle 4.26 million tons of containers in 2005, 2.26 million more than that in2003, with the capacity to rise to 6.73 million tons in 2010, 10.6 million tons in 2015, and up to 18 million tons in 2050.

It is also expected to promote train-truck coordinated transport between Yunnan and southeast countries.

China began to increase investment in railway construction in 1997. Up to the end of 2003, the total length of railway reached 73,000 kilometers, ranking first in Asia and third in world.

More express passenger lines and high-efficiency freight lines will be built from now through 2020, according to the Ministry of Railways.

(Xinhua News Agency November 27, 2004)