China's economic planner stresses rail investments

BEIJING - China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, has called for increasing efforts to reach this year's railway investment target.

Xu Xianping, vice minister of the NDRC, said at a recent work conference that efforts should be made to complete this year's railway investment plan so as to meet the country's railway constrauction target set for the 2011-2015 period.

After years of torrid growth, investment in China's railways cooled remarkably in the wake of a train crash in July last year that left 40 people dead and 172 injured.

China set itself a target of investing 500 billion yuan ($79.4 billion) in railways this year. However, in the first three quarters, fixed-asset investments on railways only amounted to 344.16 billion yuan, which means it has to catch up with the rest 31 percent in the fourth quarter.

China aims to basically complete the construction of a high-speed railway network with a total operating length of more than 40,000 km by the end of 2015.