PRESS RELEASE
China Readies for the Belt and Road Conference
May 11, 2017 (EIRNS)—In May 8 press conference preparatory to the May 14-15 Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China Railway Rolling Stock Company (CRRC) chairman Liu Hualong reported that:
- They will soon have a train that will go 400 KPH, and it will have the ability to change track to utilize different track gauges found along the Belt and Road. Up till now the lack of uniform track has been one of the biggest bottlenecks to speed of delivery along the Belt; and that
- CRRC is working on a magnetically levitated railway that will achieve speeds of 600 kilometers per hour. It will make the 1,100-kilometer trip from Shanghai to Beijing in less than two hours.
To give a sense of the unbelievably rapid growth of the Chinese rail efforts, the CRRC in 2013 had 508 employees. In 2016 they employed 4,808. In 2013 their total assets outside of China were 3 billion RMB—today they are 20.6 billion RMB. The chairman reported that 83% of the countries in the world have their products.
All this was reported by Sputnik today: just a foretaste of what is in store for the Belt and Road Forum this weekend!
