HEFEI, June 28 (Xinhua) -- A new
high-speed railway route, connecting east and central China, started
operations Sunday to serve regional integrated development. With a designed speed of 350 kph, the newly opened, high-speed section
links Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, with Huzhou in
Zhejiang Province. The stretch
extends southward to Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang, and northward to
Shangqiu, central China's Henan Province, via the already operating
high-speed railways. As the train,
known as G9394, pulled out of the Hefei South Railway Station at 8:56
a.m. Sunday, Chen Tao said he felt excited to be among the first batch
of passengers on the new route, heading for Hangzhou. "I
have to travel between the two cities for business reasons about five
times a month. The new route provides me with a faster choice," said the
25-year-old who arrived in Hangzhou, more than 400 km away from Hefei,
in about two hours. With a total
length of 794.55 km, the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou high-speed railway can
help further promote the development of central China and the regional
integration of the Yangtze River Delta, which consists of Shanghai
Municipality, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. Last year, China unveiled an outline for the regional integrated
development of the Yangtze River Delta, which is one of the country's
most economically active, open and innovative regions, and produces
about one-fourth of the national GDP. Local
governments have rolled out a raft of measures to enhance cooperation
and communication in the region. Transportation interconnection is just
one example of the coordinated development of the region. The
investment for railway construction in the Yangtze River Delta is
expected to hit more than 87 billion yuan (about 12 billion U.S.
dollars) this year, with the total length of new railway lines to exceed
1,000 km, according to the China Railway Shanghai Group Co., Ltd. "The
opening of the new route ends the history of no railways in our county,
and makes our transportation network with the outside more
comprehensive," said Shen Mingquan, secretary of Anji County Committee
of the Communist Party of China. Anji is well-known for tea production
in Zhejiang. "The development of our
company can also benefit from the new route, as it makes business
exchanges more convenient, and greatly shortens the distance between our
company and the target markets," said Shen Aqing, general manager of a
machinery technology company in Huzhou, Zhejiang. The firm's products
have been sold to Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, and other provinces. The
Yangtze River Delta has the country's densest distribution of cities
and towns, and is a strong driving force to the central and western
regions, according to Fu Jiajia, an official with the Anhui provincial
development and reform commission. Enditem
|