China opens railway station design market
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-04-22 10:49 China has decided to further
open its railway station design market by offering over 200 new stations for
public bidding.
The engineering design center under the Chinese Ministry of Railways held a
briefing on Thursday in Beijing for nearly 90 domestic and overseas construction
design companies.
According to the ministry, China will open up bidding for the design of over
200 railway stations along the 7,000 kilometers of new express railways to be
built in China during the 11th five-year period between 2006 and 2010.
More than half of these new stations will be in middle-sized and large
cities, said sources with the ministry.
China made its initial step toward opening the railway station design market
in 2003 when the design project of Beijing's new south railway station was
opened to the world.
The Chinese Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Railways jointly
announced to further open the railway construction market to non-railway-related
companies, beginning this week.
Besides the design market for railway projects, both railway construction and
project auditing markets will also be opened to domestic and overseas
construction companies.
Industry insiders said China is facing a huge railway construction market in
the years before 2020, during which the country's railway length will be
extended from the current 74,000 kilometers to 100,000 kilometers.
An opening railway construction market in China will surely inject new life
into China's large-scale strategy of railway development, experts said.
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