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11/21/2024 06:22:33 pm

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China Invests $10 Billion In Russia’s Plan To Upgrade Railway System, Energy

Railway in China

(Photo : Reuters/Stringer) A CRH (China Railway High-speed) Harmony bullet inspection train leaves a train station for a railway inspection assignment, in Guiyang, Guizhou province October 8, 2014.

China is taking part in Russia's major transportation development, the Moscow-Kazan railway project, with US$10 billion investments proposed in talks held Monday.

The project is in conjunction with the 39 agreements between China's Premier Li Keqiang and Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev for the construction of the 770-kilometer high-speed train system.

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Under the project, the Russian railway system will have Beijing as the first section that then stretches to Moscow all the way to the east in Kazan in time for the 2018 World Cup. The new trains can travel up to 400 miles per hour and can shorten trips from 13 hours to 3.5 hours, reported The Moscow Times.

The partnership will also cover Russia's electricity upgrade inclusive of China's US$400 billion worth of natural gas investments as well as technical and legal support.

Margarete Klein, a researcher from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said that the policy is to maintain Russia's stance in the international community despite EU's sanctions in relation to the Ukraine conflict.

Beijing Jiaotong University professor Yang Hao furthered that this is not the first time that the Moscow and Beijing central governments signed a wide scale railway project. In the 1950s, Chinese skilled workers provided technology, engineering, and documentation as a basis for Russia's national train transport.

China is a known leader in advanced technologies and expertise crucial to Russia's intent to improve transportation infrastructure. The Moscow-Kazan railway project is estimated at US$25 billion, said a representative of High-Speed Rail Lines, a Russian Railway subsidiary.

Bilateral trades and direct investments such as human resource, satellite navigation, customs, and monetary swap are expected to run in three years. In 2013, trade businesses between the two countries amounted to US$89.2 billion and US$100 billion by 2015.

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