International rail engineering companies are expected to bid
next week for consultancy services on the planned Beijing-Tianjin
high-speed railway project, a source from the Ministry of Railways
said yesterday.
No details were disclosed on the number or identities of the
bidders.
The cost of the planned 140-kilometer rail link between the
nation's capital and neighboring Tianjin Municipality is estimated
at 14.3 billion yuan (US$1.7 billion). When complete, it is
expected to cut travel time between the two cities from about one
hour 20 minutes to half an hour.
February 27 is the deadline for international companies to
submit bids, said an anonymous source from a German engineering
company involved in the competition.
"The tenderer will assess the bids starting next week and
finalize the winner of the project a few weeks later," he said.
Construction is scheduled to start by June and trains to begin
operating in 2007, Tianjin Mayor Dai Xianglong was quoted by Xinhua
News Agency as saying.
The rail project is considered a step toward regional economic
integration. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will become the third
national economic hub, following the Yangtze River and Pearl River
deltas.
As part of its plan to alleviate the nation's rail
transportation bottleneck, China has approved the building of 3,000
kilometers of high-speed railways, including lines from central
China's Wuhan to south China's Guangzhou, and from central
Zhengzhou to Xi'an in the northwest.
All the high-speed lines will have designed speed of more than
200 kilometers per hour, according to the railway ministry's
plan.
(China Daily February 24, 2005)