2011-02-23 17:18

BEIJING - China and Kazakhstan will jointly build a high-speed railway connecting the central Asian nation's cities of Astana and Almaty, with the project to be completed in 2015, the Kazakhstan Railways president Askar Mamin said Tuesday in Beijing.

Trains on the 1,050-kilometer-long double-track planned line connecting Kazakhstan's capital Astana with its biggest city Almaty, will run at a maximum speed of 350 km per hour, serving 5 million passengers annually, said Mamin at a luncheon party with entrepreneurs from China and Kazakhstan.

Experts in China estimate that 65 percent of the line will run along the ground, with the rest 370 km made up of bridges and elevated railways.

Mamin, who is accompanying Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev on a three-day visit to China, said a memorandum of understanding had been signed with China's railways authorities.

According to the memo, the line will use the most advanced Chinese technology and new generation locomotives and cars.

Also, design institutes in both countries will work together on a feasibility study, while specialist firms from China and Kazakhstan will jointly construct the railway, says the memo.

China has quickly developed technology and skills to build high-speed railways over recent years. Its high-speed railways have carried more than 600 million passengers since the first line began operation in April 2007, Lu said.

By 2010, China's newly-built high-speed railways extended 4,674 km, of which 47 percent could run trains traveling at speeds of up to 350 km per hour, such as the Beijing to Tianjin and Wuhan to Guangzhou lines, He said.

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev arrived in Beijing on Monday afternoon for a three-day state visit.

During the visit, he expressed the wish to further cooperate with China in more projects in high-tech and railways and road-building sectors. He said the Astana to Almaty high-speed line is just one of them.