Opinion - News Analysis   

In China, now great ride forward

Pallavi Aiyar

At 76,600 km, the total length of China's railways is behind only that of the U.S. and Russia, and it is expected to reach 100,000 km by 2020. The country already boasts of the world's fastest train.

— PHOTO: AFP

FUTURISTIC: Passengers walk past the CRH2 train, capable of speeds up to 250 kmph, after its arrival at the Shanghai South Railway Station from Hangzhou on February 13.

ONE OF the largest internal movements of people in the world is currently taking place in China: a 40-day period during which hundreds of millions are packing their bags and buying a ticket. The Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival as it is locally called, fell in mid-February. For weeks before and after the actual day, the millions of migrant workers who toil in factories along China's booming eastern seaboard return home to spend the festive season with their families, joined in their journey by tens of thousands of students making similar trips home for their university vacation.

The spotlight is thus firmly on China's railways that is bearing the brunt of this tidal wave of passengers. More than 156 million people are expected to travel by train between February 3 and March 14 according to China's Ministry of Railways, a daily average of almost four million.

For most foreign visitors, it is China's silken-smooth highways and glistening airports that draw their attention. Few have the opportunity to travel by train, and so China's achievements in railway development often go under-appreciated. In fact, China's infrastructure revolution has included its railways leading to what a recent World Bank report on the issue calls an "extraordinary breakthrough" in the last decade or so.

The report titled, "Highway and Railway Development in India and China from 1992 to 2002," points out that in the early 1990s India's railway infrastructure was actually ahead of China's in terms of total route kilometre and route kilometre per head of population. Over the next 10 years, however, China's rail network outstripped India's on virtually every parameter.

Between 1992 and 2002 while India's overall rail network route kilometre grew by only one per cent, length of double track by 10 per cent, and electrified lines by 48 per cent, the corresponding figures for China were 24 per cent, 69 per cent, and 50 per cent. The report points out that investment in the railways in China during this decade was estimated at $85 billion, compared to $17.3 billion in India.

This means that despite the current cheering over Railway Minister Lalu Prasad's vaunted turnaround of the Indian Railways, China has, in fact, stolen a march on its southern neighbour. And rather than rest on its considerable laurels, China Railways is focussing on even more ambitious future plans which will only widen the distance that India's railways must go in order to match it.

China's Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun recently announced that the country would build 19,800 km of new railway lines by 2010 in addition to upgrading 15,000 km of existing lines. This would enable China's railway networks to carry 30 per cent more passengers and 30 per cent more freight than its current, already considerable capacity. The quantum of investment in the five years between 2006 and 2010 to achieve these goals is planned at a whopping 1.25 trillion yuan.

At 76,600 km, the total length of China's railways is already the highest in Asia and third longest in the world, behind only the United States and Russia. Last year, the country's railway transportation volume accounted for a quarter of the world's total, despite having only 6 per cent of global operational railway mileage.

These achievements have been made possible by consistent and large levels of investment. In 2006 alone, 155 billion yuan ($19.7 billion) was invested in railway construction allowing 912 km of new lines to be completed and 1,016 km of lines to be double-tracked. Besides, work on 1,609 km of new lines was started.

This year, investments in the railways will increase by 65 per cent, to $32.8 billion yuan ($4.2 billion).

One major focus of China's future rail development is the speeding up of trains. The country already boasts of the world's fastest train, the Maglev, which connects Shanghai's Pudong International airport with the city centre at a maximum speed of 450 km an hour. And while India is struggling to establish 150 kmph rail corridors, China already has 5,370 km of tracks that can take speeds of up to 200 kmph, in addition to another 14,000 km where trains can run at speeds of 160 kmph. Over the next five years, China aims to raise further the speed of passenger trains to 200 kmph on an additional 13,000 km of existing rail tracks.

On January 28, high-speed trains modelled on Japan's Shinkansen bullet trains began commercial operations on two routes from Shanghai to Hangzhou and Nanjing cities. The trains can reach speeds of 250 kmph although until April they will run at a trial speed of 160 kmph.

Moreover, work on the much publicised 1,320 km Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway project has been given the go-ahead this year. When complete, the route will cut travelling time by train between the two cities from the current 12 hours to five.

The priority that China is giving its railway development is connected to the particular role that it plays in enabling the country to sustain its current level of 10 per cent annual growth. The railways transports some 75 per cent of China's coal, 66 per cent of its ore, and 56 per cent of grain.

Moreover, developing railway infrastructure is the primary means for China to prevent the biggest bottleneck to economic growth of all — labour shortages. In the next 20-30 years, up to 400 million people will leave China's rural areas and head to the cities. What is being built now is the infrastructure that will facilitate the movement of that labour force, both from the rural areas to the towns and within the new urban areas.

Air travel will remain beyond the pockets of this segment of the population and travel by road will remain more cumbersome. The railways will be the primary means by which the opportunities in China's prosperous coastal regions will trickle down to the vast numbers of people in the country's distant and impoverished interiors.

Finally, China's prioritisation of railways also springs from the awareness of it being the most energy efficient of the three main means of transportation. According to the Chinese Ministry of Railways, the energy consumption ratio of transportation by air, road, and railways is 11:8:1.

Ambitious goal

The main challenge China faces in its railway development plan is financing. According to the Medium and Long Term Railway Network Development Programme, the route length of China's railways will reach 100,000 km by 2020. But the cost for this ambitious goal will be a cool two trillion yuan ($247.2 billion). The central government cannot hope to fund even half of this amount on its own and is thus now actively seeking outside capital, including private and even foreign investment, to take up the slack.

China already has several dozen joint venture railway projects, essentially partnerships between the Ministry of railways, provincial governments, industrial enterprises, and other investors. The first private-sector rail projects since 1949 are also taking shape such as the Quzhou-Changshan railway line in eastern China's Zhejiang province, a link planned by the Ministry of Railways but built with capital from the private sector.

China Railways has also been able to generate a substantial proportion of the funds needed for investments in the construction of new lines internally, its healthy operating ratios having resulted in significant surpluses. The surpluses followed hikes in passenger fares from the mid 1990s, the separation of China Railways' non-core activities from its core-competencies and the cutting down of its staff roster by half, down to 1.7 million employees.

Not without problems

This is not to say that China Railways is problem-free. Despite rapid development it is still unable to match demand. At present, about 280,000 cars are requested daily to transport goods, but only half the requests can be met. A trade magazine claims that passenger trains in China provide only 2.41 million seats while selling 3.05 million tickets a day, leaving huge numbers of passengers no choice but to stand in the aisles.

Nonetheless, China has transformed its railways from one that matched India's in terms of obsolete and low quality infrastructure into a system that incorporates modern, high standard designs, requires less maintenance and down time, and boasts of high service reliability. The World Bank report attributes this to China having made a choice in the 1990s to build capacity that did not simply address the immediate bottlenecks at the time but to go beyond, creating "a high-capacity system of modern railways that would provide for future needs as well."

The crux was thus in thinking big and planning ahead for future needs and capacity rather than simply responding to present needs. The latter is a short-term strategy that only leads to solutions, outdated no sooner than they have been implemented; a common affliction in India.

China's railway system is the only one in the world comparable to India's in terms of size and complexity. In fact, the present conditions facing the Indian Railways are similar in many respects to those that confronted China Railways in the late 1990s. An encouraging thought for India and for Mr. Lalu Prasad who might do well to take a feather out of China's cap or perhaps a wheel off its wagon, lest India not miss the train to prosperity that China is steaming along on.

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