"We will strive to complete ahead of time the Shanghai-Shenzhen coastal express railway, which travels through Hangzhou, Ningbo and Xiamen, in tandem with the Shanghai-Hangzhou express railway," said Lu Dongfu, Vice Minister of Railways, yesterday.

The Shanghai-Hangzhou express railway project plan has been submitted to related authorities, and the project is expected to be completed during the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-2010), he said. "The Shanghai-Hangzhou and Hangzhou-Ningbo railways were both designed as express railways, with maximum speeds of over 250 kilometers per hour."

He added, "there are 14 railways from Japan's Tokyo to Osaka, but we have only two from Shanghai to Hangzhou and from Hangzhou to Ningbo. We should have at least 6 railways to boost economic growth."

Lu attributed the problems caused by Spring Festival travel peaks to inadequate railway capacity. "We have invested 2 trillion yuan (US$281.63 billion) to construct railways measuring over 20,000 kilometers," he said. "We will accelerate railway construction in the next five years."