Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    WORK on the Guangdong section of a high-speed rail that will link Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province and Shenzhen was officially initiated in Heyuan City on Thursday.

    The 436-km high-speed rail line, with an estimated investment of 62 billion yuan (US$8.93 billion), will cut the trip from Shenzhen to Heyuan to 40 minutes when it is put into operation in 2020. The whole line will have 14 stations and the trip to Ganzhou will be cut to two hours.

    The railway runs through about 300 kilometers of Guangdong, passing Heyuan, Huizhou and Dongguan and ending in Shenzhen. It will have a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

    The Guangdong section will cost about 45.8 billion yuan, which will be jointly funded by the Guangdong Provincial Government and China Railway Corp.

    The Guangdong Party chief, Hu Chunhua, said at the launch ceremony that the rail line will enhance ties between cities around the Pearl River Delta and northeastern Guangdong cities.

    Work on the Shenzhen section of the railway was simultaneously initiated in Guangming New Area on Thursday.

    The civil engineering work will start in May next year.

    “This rail line is very important for Guangming New Area, where construction of urban complexes and industrial parks are under way,” said Wang Yan, deputy director with Guangming Urban Development Promotion Center.

    The rail line will form part of a longer proposed high-speed rail link to Nanchang, Jiangxi and will be connected with the Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway to allow access to coastal Fujian cities.

    The Ganzhou-Shenzhen high-speed rail line is the southern part of the Beijing-Kowloon high-speed railway.