Singapore's Midas Holdings has entered a joint venture with three Chinese firms to establish the country's biggest inner city train carriage manufacturer in Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province.

Midas holds a 32.5 percent stake in the newly-founded Nanjing Puzhen Rail Transport Co. Ltd., whose investment totals 407.63 million yuan (50.85 million U.S. dollars).

Nanjing Puzhen Train Carriage Company holds more than a 40 percent stake of the joint venture, while the rest is held by the Nanjing Underground Railway Co. Ltd. and Nanjing High-tech Development Corporation.

The company is expected to churn out 500 carriages annually after its initial project is completed in two years' time.

According to Qi Lu, a local government official, China is expected to build anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 km of inner city railways in the next decade. The market demand for inner city train carriages will reach 9,000, worth approximately 100 billion yuan (some 12.35 billion U.S. dollars).

Statistics from the State Development and Reform Commission show that the investment in the rail transport sector will amount to 200 billion yuan (about 25 billion U.S. dollars) during China's 11th Five-Year Program period (2006-2010).

Earlier, the world's leading rail transport firms like Canadian train manufacturer Bombardier and German industrial mammoth Siemens have already entered China's huge market through forming joint ventures or tender bidding.

Source: Xinhua