Ministry of Railways announced in Beijing Wednesday (Dec. 15) that China will begin building high speed railways, which carry trains traveling at 200 kilometers per hour or faster, in 2005.

The ministry opened a two-day international seminar on passenger-dedicated line engineering in Beijing today attended by 16 foreign consultant companies.

The government has approved the building of 3,000 km of railways, said Vice Minister of Railways Lu Dongfu.

All the railways will transport trains that run above 200 km per hour, but the track from Wuhan to Guangzhou and Zhengzhou to Xi'an will carry trains traveling at 300 km per hour.

He Huawu, chief engineer of the ministry, noted that the designed speed of the railways is 350 km per hour and the operating speed in initial stages will be 300 km per hour and 200 km when passing flyovers.

According to the ministry's program, China will build 10,000 km of special passenger railways and 2,000 km of high speed railways at the end of 2020.

The 3,000 km of track includes railroads from Wuhan, capital ofcentral China's Hubei Province, to Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province; Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, to Xi'an, capital of northwest Shaanxi Province; Beijing to Tianjin Municipality; Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, to Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

Japan built the first high speed railway in 1964; currently trains there run at 300 km per hour.

Editor: Olivia