Railway Transport: Chinese City To Quadruple Metro Network By 2020

Authorities in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, plan to increase the distance from over 100 km to 500 km in three years.

China today boasts a well developed rail transport system. In 2015, the country had a normal railway network of 121,000 km, 20,000 km of high-speed or bullet train rail – the longest in the world – and 3,600 km of metro or subway lines. Because of the huge population of almost 1.4 billion people and land area of 9.5 million square kilometres, railway construction and management is devolved to several subsidiaries for efficiency by the China Railway Corporation.  

China Railway No. 2 Engineering Group Company Limited, CREGC, is one of these subsidiaries. Founded in 1950, CREGC now owns assets worth 10 Billion US Dollars (or 5,861 Billion FCFA) and an annual turnover of 9 Billion US Dollars (or 5,274 Billion FCFA.) It is amongst the largest railway construction firms in the world today. Based in Chengdu, capital of the Southwestern Sichuan Province, CREGC is currently undertaking a 60-km, 70-metre deep metro line project with 20 stations in the city. The two-year project is due to be completed in 2018.

According to CREGC’s Managing Director, Liao Zhiming, the new subway line in a city of 14 million inhabitants and a province of 91 million people, will add to the other two of over 100 km. “By 2020, the city’s total tube network will be 500 km,” Zhiming disclosed. During a visit by 26 African journalists to the company’s headquarters in Chengdu on May 24, 2017, Cui Jiangli, CREGC’s Deputy Director General, said the company has diversified its activities. It is now nationally certified to also carry out major inf...