Construction will begin within the next year on a high-speed rail project connecting Hebei’s provincial capital of Shijiazhuang and Jinan, the capital of the neighboring Shandong province, a Hebei government official said.

Shijiazhuang-Jinan Passenger Railway Line Corp is sponsored by the Hebei government, Shandong government and the Ministry of Railways with 22.1 billion registered capital. The enterprise established its headquarter in the Shijiazhuang High Tech Zone last week.

The 319-kilometer railway, with a designed speed of 250 kilometers per hour, will shorten the current four-hour commute between the two cities to less than two hours. Construction will be completed in three years.

The Shijiazhuang-Jinan link will be part of a larger railway project spanning Shanxi, Hebei and Liaoning provinces from Shanxi’s capital of Taiyuan to the coastal city of Qingdao.

By Guo Changdong and Zhang Nan