Chinanews, Beijing, Jan. 5 – Construction of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which was due to begin in 2006 and finish by 2010, has been postponed, the China Business Times reported.

 

In a video conference held on December 31, 2006, Chinese Railway Minister Liu Zhijun touched upon the major tasks to be accomplished within the whole railway transport system in 2007. In his speech, However, Liu did not mention anything about the construction work of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, nor did he say anything about the State Council's approval of the project.

 

According to related procedures set for large national construction projects, construction of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway should get the approval of the State Council before construction can begin. However, by December 31, 2006, the State Council had not approved the project yet.

 

On March 7, 2006, the State Council approved the construction scheme for the high-speed railway, which means that the project had been authorized by and registered with the government. After this, the project should have entered into the stage of a feasibility study. In fact, preparation work for the railway construction already took place ten years ago. A rough designing plan for the railway construction had been ready and in some places, bridges were already built in preparation for the construction. Based on this, it could be said that the feasibility study work could be finished in a very a short time. Earlier, people at the Ministry of Railway (MOR) had said that they “plan to start the construction in 2006.” Their statement was widely quoted by many media, in whose reports it was said that the construction “will take place in 2006.”

 

The reporter was informed that the feasibility report had already been submitted to the State Council for approval.

 

Why, then, didn’t the government give its approval to the plan as expected? Officials from MOR did not give the reason for the delay. However, insiders told the reporter that the estimated costs for the railway construction had been raised from the earlier 130 billion yuan to the present 170–200 billion yuan.

 

And the new estimated costs (170 billion yuan) do not include the costs of the construction for the Nanjing Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge and two other projects, which are already being built. If construction costs for these three independent projects are added, the total costs might be up to 200 billion yuan.