China willing to share expertise in high-speed railway sector

BEIJING - China is willing to share with Turkey its expertise in high-speed railway construction and looks forward to more cooperation in the field, a Chinese railway official has said.

Chen Juemin, director-general of the international cooperation department of the Ministry of Railways, told China Daily that work on the Ankara-Istanbul high-speed railway project in Turkey, a pioneering model of Sino-Turkish cooperation, has been going smoothly.

The high-speed rail line between Turkey's capital Ankara and the country's largest city, Istanbul, is the biggest project Chinese companies are undertaking as general contractors in Turkey.

The high-speed railway is 158 kilometers long and has a designed speed of 250 km per hour. Two Chinese enterprises and their Turkish cooperative partners won the bid for the project, which has a total contract value of about $1.27 billion, in 2006.

Wang Xusheng, president of China National Machinery Import & Export Corp, one of the construction's contractors, told China Daily the project is a milestone, as it is "China's first overseas high-speed railway project".

"China is bringing its advanced railway equipment and modern technology to its partner," he said.

"This will also help upgrade Turkey's logistics industry and expand the country's employment."

China's rapid development in the high-speed railway arena is capturing world attention.

On Tuesday, a high-speed train between Shanghai and Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, set a new speed record during its trial run. The China-made CRH380A train hit a top speed of 416.6 km an hour, Xinhua News Agency reported.

"China has 7,055 km of high-speed railway in service," He Huawu, the ministry's chief engineer, told Xinhua last month.

"It is the world's longest and the fastest, and boasts the most comprehensive technology."