Zhanjiang, a port city in the western part of Guangdong province, is expected to become a new hub for high-speed railways after the city's high-speed railway development plan was approved by the central government last month, a senior city official said on Monday.

Jiang Jianjun, mayor of Zhanjiang, said the high-speed railway development plan, which includes construction of five lines to link the city to the rest of the country, is of great significance in Zhanjiang's economic construction and opening up to the outside world, as transportation has become the bottleneck that is preventing the city's economy from rapid growth.

"The city government is now doing what it can to speed up the preliminary work, including land expropriation, to try to start construction of the remaining four high-speed railway projects as soon as possible," Jiang said.

According to Jiang, construction of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang and Hepu-Zhanjiang high-speed railways is expected to officially begin before the end of year. Meanwhile, a feasibility study for the Zhanjiang-Haikou high-speed railway has basically been completed and construction is expected to kick off before the end of 2020.

"And the feasibility study for construction of the Zhanjiang section of the Zhangjiajie-Haikou high-speed railway is also well under way," Jiang said.

The Zhangjiajie-Haikou high-speed railway links the major tourist cities of Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, Guilin in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, Zhanjiang in Guangdong and Haikou in Hainan province.

The Shenzhen-Zhanjiang high-speed railway that began operating on July 1 last year has played an important role in Zhanjiang's economic construction in recent months.