According to the Chinese calendar 2008 is the year of the rat. It is going to be of the colossal kind - the ones built of iron and steel, powered by electric engines, able to pull passenger cars around the city's underground tunnels. It is China's year of the subway.
In the past weeks, we have read about timetables or the launch of new subways in a dozen or so Chinese cities.
In Beijing alone, as many as 11 subway lines are being built, with a total length of 270 km, "rarely seen in the history of cities", a Chinese-language report boasts. By 2015, Beijing will have a total of 19 rail lines, under and above ground, with a service length of more than 440 km.
From now till 2015, the Chinese capital city's subway building bills will add up to 170 billion yuan (22.7 billion), of which 60 percent will be from national bank loans, and the rest will be raised by the local governments at the municipal and district levels.
It can be expected that in cities other than Beijing, local financing will contribute a large proportion of the subway investment. The State banking system will have to be more generous to all the key players.
One still has to learn how much private-sector funds will be raised through the issue of shares and bonds. But judging from the existing legal and financial environment in China, it is conceivable that private investors could be partners with the local governments in funding and holding interests in public infrastructure.
Subways are expensive to build. But they seem to generate more returns, economically and socially, for the cities than other independent big-ticket projects, such as airports, beautiful city-center squares, new shopping malls, office towers, and worst of all, pompously-styled government buildings and, often their nearby, wasteful luxury restaurants.
Subway projects are what Chinese cities particularly need at a time of tight credit supply to keep generating labor-intensive jobs and to indirectly boost local consumer spending.
They also play an important role in municipal plans for future industrial zones, low-cost housing projects and other developments, unlike the awkward attempts to rebuild old streets to ease traffic congestion.
A recent report from Shanghai says the city will have 11 new urban rail lines by 2010. The city's rail system will be extended to more than 400 km, and able to carry 5.8 million passengers daily.
Just an hour's drive from Shanghai is Suzhou, which is not even a provincial capital, the construction of the city's first subway was started on December 26 - a 25.7-km line to connect the old downtown area with the famous Suzhou industrial park, one of the largest manufacturing bases in the Yangtze River Delta. The total cost is reported to be 12.6 billion yuan.
Another short distance away is Wuxi and Changzhou. Both have their first subway plans ready.
Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou are all cities in Jiangsu province. The provincial capital Nanjing, whose No 1 subway line is already operating, is busy completing its No 2 line while waiting Beijing's approval of its No 3 line.
Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Shenyang, Xi'an, Chengdu and Wuhan are also building or expanding their subway systems. They may, according to local sources, be joined by Harbin this year.
Other cities waiting for the central government's approval of their subway plans, include Dalian, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Ningbo, Jinan, Qingdao, and Hefei.
It is a new game in China's development. And the more, the merrier.
E-mail: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 01/14/2008 page4)
