A UNIT of China’s CRRC Corp., the world’s biggest trainmaker by revenue, Friday inked a deal to help build a planned high-speed link from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, underlining the rail giant’s lofty overseas ambitions.

    CRRC, formed from a State-driven merger of China’s two largest trainmakers, is among a large group of the country’s rail firms that has inked an accord for the project with XpressWest, a venture set up by Las Vegas-based hotel and casino developer Marnell Companies.

    The firm is among firms leading China’s aggressive pursuit of overseas high-speed rail deals in competition with traditional suppliers such as Germany’s Siemens AG and France’s Alstom SA. China recently clinched contracts in Russia, although it has faced hurdles in Mexico and Indonesia due to bureaucratic flip-flops in those countries.

    The firm plans to grow its share of revenue from work overseas to 30 percent within the next five years, a senior executive said in an interview Thursday before the XpressWest deal was announced. Having completed its merger in May, it booked first-half revenue of 91.8 billion yuan (US$14.42 billion), only 12 percent of which was booked overseas.

    “We want to attain the position we deserve in the global market... There is no other company on earth that is able to simultaneously research and produce high-speed trains, electric multiple units, subways,” said Cao Gangcai, CRRC’s vice chief economist.

    Financial terms of CRRC’s XpressWest partnership weren’t disclosed in a joint statement with the U.S. firm announcing the deal, though it said the project had initial capital of US$100 million.

    Gary Wong, an Hong Kong-based analyst at brokerage Guotai Junan, estimated the project could be worth about US$5 billion. (SD-Agencies)