Construction began yesterday on two metro projects in Chengdu of Sichuan Province and Nanjing of Jiangsu Province.

The scheme in Chengdu Line 1 will cost 7 billion yuan (US$866 million) for a distance of nearly 16 kilometres and will have 15 stops running from north to south in the city.

The trains and tracks of the first phase will be made domestically. Initially, there will be 22 trains.

Each can hold 1,200 passengers, according to Xiao Zhongping, deputy general manager of Chengdu Metro Limited Liability Company.

Construction is expected to last four-and-a-half years he said.

"Metro construction will change the layout of Chengdu's residential quarters. Urban areas will no longer be residential quarters. Instead, they will become centres of commerce, trade and finance. Most residential quarters will move out of the city centre," said Guan Baoshu, one of the planners of Chengdu's metro construction.

Metro construction started in the Chinese mainland in 1965 in Beijing. There are now also systems in Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shenzhen.

The Nanjing project Metro Line 2 will cross the city from west to east, and be connected to the north-south Line 1 in the centre of the city.

The project will be about 43 kilometres long and be built in three phases, said Vice-Mayor Dai Yongning.

Costing about 10.45 billion yuan (US$1.29 billion), the first phase will be completed in three-and-a-half-years and formally be open to traffic in the first half of 2009, said Xie Ning, who works at the Information Office of Nanjing Subway Headquarters.

(China Daily December 29, 2005)