As Japan and India strengthen their bond with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visiting India, China is showing interest in India’s high speed railway projects, reports indicate.
China has been aggressively marketing its high-speed rail technology abroad and in the past lobbied hard to get the first contract in India. China has already taken up a feasibility study for the New Delhi-Chennai corridor, but no headway has been made in this regard so far.
China has shown interest in high speed railway projects in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe prepared to lay the foundation for India’s first bullet train project.
“We stand ready to promote cooperation with India and other regional countries for regional development,” Geng said expressing interest in reviving the project.
“As to the railway cooperation, it is part of the practical cooperation between India and China. We have reached important consensus in this regard. Relevant competent authorities between the two countries maintained communication and increasing speed of railway in the current projects,” he said.
India and China have worked out a number of cooperative agreements for the development of railways under which the Indian Railways engineers are getting trained in China in heavy hauling.
China is also cooperating with India to set up a rail university. China has also undertaken work to renovate some of the railway stations in India.
China has the world’s longest high-speed rail network. China has connected most of its cities with high speed trains reducing the travel time drastically.
