China's high-speed railway economy taking shape

China has become the country with the fastest development, most complete systematic technologies, strongest assembly capacity, the greatest length of track, highest operational speed and the largest project scale of high-speed railways in the world, representatives from the Ministry of Railways said recently.

China has put 355 multiple-unit trains into operation, including 234 trains that can reach 250 kilometers per hour and 121 trains that can reach 350 kilometers per hour. The trains have safely traveled 280 million kilometers and transported more than 500 million passengers, according to data from the ministry.

So far, China's high-speed railways are mainly in the three large economic zones, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei economic zone. Just in 2009, the average local GDP of the three zones had increased by as high as 10 percent, 1.7 percentage points higher than the growth rate of China's total GDP.

In the same year, the GDP of the three zones accounted for 44 percent of the GDP of China, up three percentage points compared to that of 2008. Experts believe that China's high-speed railways have become a booster for China's regional economic integration. China is coming into a "high-speed railway era" and China's high-speed railway economy is taking shape.

High-speed railways: New engine for China's regional economic integration

On Aug. 1, 2010, the Beijing-Tianjin High-Speed Railway, the first high-speed railway in China, celebrated its two-year anniversary. Since the railway was put into operation two years ago, the economic development of Beijing and Tianjin has been accelerating rapidly.

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