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China today played down arch rival Japan winning the contract to build India's first bullet train project as officials said the deal is confined to one sector and claimed India is still open to Chinese investments on other high-speed routes depending on easy financing.
China today played down arch rival Japan winning the contract to build India's first bullet train project as officials said the deal is confined to one sector and claimed India is still open to Chinese investments on other high-speed routes depending on easy financing.
India's move to opt for Japanese bullet trains on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route has raised concerns in China which is vying with Japan to build high-speed rail in India.
In addition to conducting a feasibility study to build a high speed rail track on the 2,200-km Chennai-Delhi route, an India-China consortium is also conducting a study for the 1,200-km New Delhi-Mumbai corridor.
Indian officials here said that Japan had undertaken the feasibility study for the 500-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor well before China entered the fray offering to do the Chennai-Delhi route that could cost over USD 20 billion.
The proposed agreement to be signed during Japan premier Shinzo Abe's visit to New Delhi on Saturday is for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor and India's decision to opt for high speed rail in other corridors will depend on easy and affordable financing terms as offered by Tokyo for the first bullet train in India, they said.
For its part, China today reacted guardedly to India's decision to opt for Japan's 'Shinkansen' bullet trains stating that railway cooperation is an "important consensus" reached between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Indian leader's visit here in May.
"I believe all nations are entitled to their cooperation partners and the way they want to cooperate. We respect India's decision," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a media briefing here.
Departments of both sides are in close touch, she said adding that India and China are in contact to improve speed on India's existing tracks with Chinese technical assistance. "I believe they remain in close communication and hope that relevant cooperation can continue further," she said.
Besides improving the speed on existing tracks, China is also training Indian railway engineers in heavy haulage and is setting up a railway university on the lines of one in China. Last month, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya during his visit to Beijing said Chinese infrastructure financing is far more expensive compared to Japan and that Beijing should match the terms.
According to reports from Tokyo, Abe will convey an offer of more than USD 8.1 billion in official Japanese lending for the roughly USD 14.6 billion Mumbai-Ahmedabad project. China is keen to get Indian bullet train deals as it would provide a major opening for it to win projects abroad in the face of stiff competition from Japan.
China recently grabbed its first foreign high-speed rail project in Indonesia beating out Japan as it offered easy finance and technical assistance.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/japan-pips-china-in-race-to-build-india-first-bullet-train/1
/543135.html
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Japanese bullet trains could be serving India’s biggest city by 2023
Hectic: the Churchgate railway station in Mumbai. (Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar)
December 08, 2015 Quartz india
Mumbai and Ahmedabad are both fast-growing cities. Getting between the two by rail? Not especially fast. Covering a little over 500 kilometers (310 miles) on India’s western side, the trip currently takes about eight hours and involves rickety trains.
But by 2023, it could take about two hours and involve sleek new bullet trains made with Japanese technology.
Japan has the technology.(Reuters/Kyodo)
India and Japan will issue a joint statement this upcoming weekend agreeing to a rail project worth about 980 billion rupee ($14.6 billion), according to the Nikkei. The statement will be released during Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s three-day visit to India, which begins on Friday (Dec. 11).
In late October Japan offered India an interest rate of less than 1% for the project. The Nikkei says Abe will convey an offer of more than 1 trillion yen ($8.1 billion) in official Japanese lending, dispersed at about 100 billion yen a year over a decade or so. The deal would put India ahead of Indonesia as Japan’s largest borrower.
It would also be welcome news for Japan, which lost a high-profile competition with China to build a rail line connecting the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Bandung. In Taiwan, meanwhile, a bullet train made with Japan’s help in 2007 has proven to be an expensive flop—one that, with passenger counts far below projections, is now getting a massive government bailout.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who was elected in May 2014, made the introduction of high-speed links and bullet trains one of his key campaign promises. Before becoming prime minister, Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat—its largest city is Ahmedabad.
Japanese companies won’t be the only ones benefiting from Modi’s promises. Last month, General Electric and France’s Alstom won lucrative contracts to supply India’s railways with new locomotives. Modi’s government has said that by 2020 it will invest $137 billion in the nation’s vast but antiquated railway system, which serves 23 million passengers daily.
Japanese bullet trains could be serving India’s biggest city by 2023 - Quartz
China today played down arch rival Japan winning the contract to build India's first bullet train project as officials said the deal is confined to one sector and claimed India is still open to Chinese investments on other high-speed routes depending on easy financing.
India's move to opt for Japanese bullet trains on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route has raised concerns in China which is vying with Japan to build high-speed rail in India.
In addition to conducting a feasibility study to build a high speed rail track on the 2,200-km Chennai-Delhi route, an India-China consortium is also conducting a study for the 1,200-km New Delhi-Mumbai corridor.
Indian officials here said that Japan had undertaken the feasibility study for the 500-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor well before China entered the fray offering to do the Chennai-Delhi route that could cost over USD 20 billion.
The proposed agreement to be signed during Japan premier Shinzo Abe's visit to New Delhi on Saturday is for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor and India's decision to opt for high speed rail in other corridors will depend on easy and affordable financing terms as offered by Tokyo for the first bullet train in India, they said.
For its part, China today reacted guardedly to India's decision to opt for Japan's 'Shinkansen' bullet trains stating that railway cooperation is an "important consensus" reached between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Indian leader's visit here in May.
"I believe all nations are entitled to their cooperation partners and the way they want to cooperate. We respect India's decision," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a media briefing here.
Departments of both sides are in close touch, she said adding that India and China are in contact to improve speed on India's existing tracks with Chinese technical assistance. "I believe they remain in close communication and hope that relevant cooperation can continue further," she said.
Besides improving the speed on existing tracks, China is also training Indian railway engineers in heavy haulage and is setting up a railway university on the lines of one in China. Last month, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya during his visit to Beijing said Chinese infrastructure financing is far more expensive compared to Japan and that Beijing should match the terms.
According to reports from Tokyo, Abe will convey an offer of more than USD 8.1 billion in official Japanese lending for the roughly USD 14.6 billion Mumbai-Ahmedabad project. China is keen to get Indian bullet train deals as it would provide a major opening for it to win projects abroad in the face of stiff competition from Japan.
China recently grabbed its first foreign high-speed rail project in Indonesia beating out Japan as it offered easy finance and technical assistance.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/japan-pips-china-in-race-to-build-india-first-bullet-train/1
/543135.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japanese bullet trains could be serving India’s biggest city by 2023
Hectic: the Churchgate railway station in Mumbai. (Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar)
December 08, 2015 Quartz india
Mumbai and Ahmedabad are both fast-growing cities. Getting between the two by rail? Not especially fast. Covering a little over 500 kilometers (310 miles) on India’s western side, the trip currently takes about eight hours and involves rickety trains.
But by 2023, it could take about two hours and involve sleek new bullet trains made with Japanese technology.
Japan has the technology.(Reuters/Kyodo)
India and Japan will issue a joint statement this upcoming weekend agreeing to a rail project worth about 980 billion rupee ($14.6 billion), according to the Nikkei. The statement will be released during Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s three-day visit to India, which begins on Friday (Dec. 11).
In late October Japan offered India an interest rate of less than 1% for the project. The Nikkei says Abe will convey an offer of more than 1 trillion yen ($8.1 billion) in official Japanese lending, dispersed at about 100 billion yen a year over a decade or so. The deal would put India ahead of Indonesia as Japan’s largest borrower.
It would also be welcome news for Japan, which lost a high-profile competition with China to build a rail line connecting the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Bandung. In Taiwan, meanwhile, a bullet train made with Japan’s help in 2007 has proven to be an expensive flop—one that, with passenger counts far below projections, is now getting a massive government bailout.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who was elected in May 2014, made the introduction of high-speed links and bullet trains one of his key campaign promises. Before becoming prime minister, Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat—its largest city is Ahmedabad.
Japanese companies won’t be the only ones benefiting from Modi’s promises. Last month, General Electric and France’s Alstom won lucrative contracts to supply India’s railways with new locomotives. Modi’s government has said that by 2020 it will invest $137 billion in the nation’s vast but antiquated railway system, which serves 23 million passengers daily.
Japanese bullet trains could be serving India’s biggest city by 2023 - Quartz
