China's major railway products supplier -- the China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corporation (CSRGC) -- signed a development financial cooperative agreement in Beijing on Monday with the China Development Bank. Over the next three years, the bank will provide 15 billion yuan (US$1.86 billion) development financial loan to support CSRGC's high-speed rail project that plans to develop locomotives capable of speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour.

Zhang Xinning, spokesman for CSRGC told Beijing Times that the order for 120 high-speed trains for China's high-speed railway has been signed. CSRGC sources have disclosed that its subsidiary, the CNR Sifang Rolling Stock Research Institute, has started construction of the 60 high-speed trains.

The trains built by CSRGC will be safer and more comfortable than the Bombardier passenger coaches which are presently running on the Beijing-Shanghai railway line, Zhang said.

The loan spells a formal take-off for the magnetic levitation plan as well as a victory for China's domestic railway product manufacturers against bigger international names.

CSRGC raked in a sales income of 78 billion yuan (US$9.66 billion) in 2005. It has been ranked the world's No.1 manufacturer of electric locomotives and No.2 for diesel locomotives for two consecutive years.

(China.org.cn by Wind Gu, January 25, 2006)