The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway may not be complete till
2013 and won't serve the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, as expected.
A bidding notice posted on the website of the Ministry of
Railways' engineering section says the project will take five years
to complete.
Issued by the railway's preparation office on Thursday, the
notice says the ministry will take a 78.9 percent stake in the
investment vehicle to finance the project, with other investors
holding the rest.
The notice, however, neither specifies the total amount of
investment nor does it say who the other investors are.
But a source said the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Corp
will have a registered capital of 115 billion yuan ($15.54
billion), and most possibly the "other investors" will be regional
governments.
Earlier reports had said the Industrial and Commercial Bank of
China, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, National Development
Bank and Ping An Insurance were the possible strategic
investors.
The banking regulator, however, didn't support the commercial
banks' bid to invest in the project, the source said. That explains
why the ministry is reportedly taking a 78.9 percent stake instead
of 35 percent, as was reported earlier.
Trains on the 1,318-km railway can run up to 350 km an hour and
cut the travel time between the two cities from 10 to less than
five hours.
Domestic companies that want to do civil engineering work and
project supervision have to apply to the railway's preparation
office before December 17, the notice says.
The open tender is looking for engineering consulting institutes
abroad, too. An overseas firm, however, has to join hands with two
Chinese companies to bid for it.
(China Daily, December 10, 2007)