By the end of 2008 Chinese government had approved the rail transport plans in 17 cities, which were planning to construct 65 rail transport lines by 2015 with the total lengths of 1,856 kilometers and the total investments exceeding 675.5 Yuan (96.5 billion USD).

At present, Chinese urban rail transport is in its fast growth period. From 1995 to 2009, more than 20 rail transport lines in ten cities were in operation over ten years and the operation mileages were 790 kilometers.

Recently, with the speed-up of Chinese urbanization process, the increasing population in China and the expansion of the urban areas, the construction process of Chinese urban rail transport is also accelerated.

According to the statistics, the total lengths of the urban rail transport network plans in 15 economically developed countries, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Nanjing, Chongqing, Changchun, Harbin, Shenyang, Hangzhou, Xi'an, Chengdu and Suzhou etc, have reached to 1,700 kilometers with the total investments exceeding 600 billion Yuan (85.7 billion USD). The urban rail transport line plans in these 15 cities had been approved during 2003 to 2006.

Apart from the above mentioned 15 cities, another more ten cities, including Ningbo, Wuxi, Changsha, Zhenzhou, Dalian, Dongguan, Guiyang, Hefei, Kunming, Nanning and Fuzhou etc, are preparing to construct the urban rail transport with the preliminarily estimated lengths of 1,000 to 1,500 kilometers.

News source: www.forbes.com /RZD-PARTNER