Shanghai: Nanjing's government will at the end of the year publish plans to build a new 'economic zone' to rival Shanghai's Pudong and the Binhai area in Tianjin, local Communist Party chief Zhu Shanlu said.
Zhu told a meeting here that both Morgan Stanley and the Asian Development Bank have visited the zone's prospective site on the northern bank of the Yangtze River.
He also said that the city is planning to build two more bridges and two new tunnels to boost traffic across the Yangtze. He did not disclose investment details.
Zhu was appointed party chief of Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu province, earlier this month. He said he was brought from Beijing with specific aims to reduce Nanjing's congestion and improve the environment.
The National Development & Reform Commission has formally approved the construction of a 300 km high speed line between Shanghai and Nanjing at a cost of 39·5bn yuan. The project is to be funded by the two cities, the province of Jiangsu and the Ministry of Railways. Construction is expected to start in the first half of this year, and take four years to complete.
With the Yangtze delta region generating 22% of China's GPD, the route is one of CR's busiest inter-city corridors. Traffic has grown steadily since the launch of CRH services last year, and is forecast to exceed 38 million journeys per year by 2030.
The 300 km/h dedicated passenger line will cut the fastest journey time between the two cities from 2 h to 72 min. There will be 27 intermediate stations, including stops to serve the rapidly-growing cities of Kunshan, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Danyang and Zhenjiang. Services are expected to operate 24 h a day, with a minimum headway of 3 min at peak times.
Plans are taking shape for a high speed line linking Shanghai with Hangzhou and Ningbo, which would parallel the proposed maglev extension from Pudong to Hangzhou. A direct line from Nanjing to Hangzhou is also envisaged. [31/03/08]
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