Double-track electrified railway project to be built with huge investment in NW. China

China will invest 4 billion yuan (about 484 million US dollars) in building a second double track electrified railway project through northwest China's Gansu and Qinghai provinces, a local official said Tuesday.

The planned 169.9-km-long dual track electrified railway runs from Lanzhou to Xining, capital cities of Gansu and Qinghai respectively, with a designed speed ranging from 160 to 200 km per hour.

The second electrified railway project, to begin in the latter half of this year and complete in 2007, will connect with the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the most elevated rail route in the world, also scheduled to open in 2007.

After the completion of the new project, the electrified railways from Lanzhou to Xining will be able to ship 40 million tons of cargo a year, compared with the current capacity of 7.65 million tons. Sixty passenger trains will travel between the two provinces daily, nearly four times of the current capacity.

Qinghai's economy has grown at an annual rate of over 12 percent in the past four years. In 2004, its gross domestic product (GDP) totaled 45.5 billion yuan (about 5.5 billion US dollars) with per capita GDP exceeding 1,000 US dollars.

Since China initiated "Go-West" drive, designed for boosting economic development in western China in 2001, railway transportation has become a bottleneck for the economic growth of the western provinces, failing to meet the soaring demand for cargo and passenger transport in the region.