International News

High-speed rail to link 80% of major Chinese cities by 2020: Official

BEIJING, May 28 (APP): China will increase the distance covered by its
high-speed railway tracks, planning by 2020 to connect more than 80 percent of the country’s major cities by high-speed rail.
The country had earmarked over 15 trillion RMB ($2.2 trillion) to
develop domestic transportation from 2016 to 2020, according to Minister of Transport Li Xiaopeng at the 2017 China Civil Aviation Development Forum.
Railways, highways and airports would almost fully cover Chinese cities
with populations of over 200,000 people by 2020, Li disclosed.
China’s transportation network has reached five million kilometers by
the end of 2016, with 22,000 kilometers of high-speed rail and 130,000 kilometers of expressways.
Li noted that certain weaknesses in facilities and technical management
could be bolstered as the country carried out supply-side structural reform in its transportation industry.