Work on a 126-km high-speed rail between downtown Shenzhen and the Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone will start this year, according to the Guangdong 2020 Key Project Construction Plan released by the Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission on its official website recently.

The 38-billion-yuan (US$5.47 billion) project starts from Xili Station in Nanshan District and ends at Chishi Station in Shenshan via Pingshan Station and Guizhou South Station.

Upon completion in 2025, the trip between Shenzhen and the Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone will be cut to 30 minutes. The high-speed rail will connect with the Guangzhou-Shanwei rail line and become part of the future coastal high-speed rail corridor.

Guangdong will invest 5.9 trillion yuan into 1,230 key projects involving 700 billion yuan this year, according to the key project construction plan. The projects also include construction of the Shenzhen-Jiangmen section of the Shenzhen-Maoming high-speed rail line, Xili Transport Hub, the Jiangmen-Pearl River Delta Airport Hub section of the Shenzhen-Nanning high-speed rail, the third runway of Shenzhen International Airport and Shenzhen Belt and Road Data Valley.

The 116-km Shenzhen-Jiangmen section of the Shenzhen-Maoming high-speed rail will cost 52.1 billion yuan. Upon completion in 2024, the trip between Shenzhen and Maoming will be cut from the present seven hours to three hours.

The construction of the Xili Transport Hub, including Xili Station, the Tanglangshan train depot and a new line of 12 kilometers, will cost 15.7 billion yuan and be completed in 2024.

A new line of 77 kilometers will be built for the Jiangmen-Pearl River Delta Airport Hub section of the Shenzhen-Nanning high-speed rail at 18.6 billion yuan. The Shenzhen-Nanning high-speed rail runs 645.7 kilometers and is designed for speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour. It has 14 stations.

The Belt and Road Big Data Valley, which will cost 3 billion yuan, is an off-shore data center, national new-type Internet exchange center and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao cross-border data service platform. It will be completed in 2022.