Railway operators from Beijing, Shanghai and some other major Chinese cities, along with big international names including French-based Alcatel and US-based General Electric (GE), Thursday converged on Beijing for the country's first annual urban railway conference.

The participants are striving to explore ways to operate urban railway "as a transport means, a complicated economic phenomenon and culture."

There is now great enthusiasm for investing in railways across the nation, as this mode of transport proves very convenient in cities with more than 1 million people.

Zhou Xiaoqin, a railway expert with the China International Engineering Consulting Co-operation, said this enthusiasm is rooted in the opening up of the sector, allowing non-State funds to participate in the construction and operation of urban railways.

Beijing has vowed to ensure good transport facilities for the 2008 Olympic Games. But in view of the increasingly severe traffic jams in the city, the increased development of railways ranks high on the municipal government's list of solutions.

"Beijing has vowed to increase its total length of railways to 300 kilometres by 2008 and to over 1,000 kilometres by 2020," said Zhou. "Diversifying the sources of investment will help manage the huge financial injection required."

Although not specifically targeting the railways, Liu Yongfu, director of the Beijing Municipal Construction Committee, did disclose on an earlier occasion that the diversification of funding sources to finance construction of the city's major engineering projects will be more common in the future.

According to Liu, a lack of funding has already caused the postponement of the construction of several major roads, such as the Sixth Ring Road, whose construction will start next year, one year late.

Zhou also disclosed yesterday that as many as 20 railway construction projects in 15 cities are under examination and subject to government approval.

The State Development Planning Commission recently issued a circular stipulating that only cities of "considerable" economic strength are qualified to construct urban railways. But it cannot change the fact that many Chinese cities are vying with each other for a share of the country's planned 800 billion yuan (US$96.4 billion) State-investment for urban railways during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005), according to Zhou.

By the end of 2005, the number of cities with urban railways will increase from the present four to more than 10.

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