China to start urgently needed railway projects in 2012

Beijing: China will start building “urgently needed” railway projects this year as part of its 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) to shore up infrastructure, the China Securities Journal said on Thursday, citing the cabinet. China had moved to slow railway project approvals to address public anger after a crash on a new high-speed rail line in July that killed 40 people. China’s railways have been plagued with problems, with an audit of the flagship Beijing-Shanghai link finding evidence of fraud, waste, mismanagement and irregular accounting and procurement, totaling billions of yuan. [caption id=“attachment_252021” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“China had moved to slow railway project approvals to address public anger after a crash on a new high-speed rail line in July that killed 40 people. Reuters”]  [/caption] The China Securities Journal cited a cabinet meeting late on Wednesday, chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, had agreed to begin new rail projects. “We need to complete a number of major railway projects and start a number of new projects that are urgently needed and necessary when time is appropriate,” it reported of the meeting. But the journal did not give the amount of planned new railway investment. State media have reported that the ministry plans to cut its annual railway investment by 15 percent in 2012 to 400 billion yuan. Slower investment could reduce financial strains on the heavily-indebted Railway Ministry, China’s largest bond issuer after the treasury and with outstanding debt of 2.23 trillion yuan as of the end of last September. Reuters