CHINA will expand its railway network to 150,000 km by 2020, including 30,000 km of high-speed rail, the country’s top economic planner said yesterday.

    The plan will mean a 24 percent increase in the length of China’s railway network from 2015 and a 58 percent expansion in high-speed rail.

    The government will encourage State-owned China Railway Corp. to expand bond issuance to finance its investment, Fei Zhirong, an official at the National Development and Reform Commission, told a new conference.

    China aims to invest 800 billion yuan (US$119.71 billion) in fixed assets in 2016 as part of the effort to expand the railway network.

    China Railway invested 823.8 billion yuan in 2015, building 9,531 km of new lines which included 3,306 km of high-speed rail.

    The high-speed rail system will reach 38,000 km by 2025, Fei said, as part of the country’s medium- and long-tem plans.

    The vast majority of China’s high-speed railway lines, however, are loss-making. Only one — the Beijing-Shanghai link that opened in 2011 — is profitable, according to the railway authority. In May, China Railway Corp. said it had a deficit of 8.73 billion yuan between January to March, up 35 percent year on year.

    (SD-Agencies)