China Rail Projects Reach Into Nigeria, Japan

China's national and international infrastructure construction is reaching into Nigeria and Japan in two agreements announced this week. In Abuja, Nigeria, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and the Nigerian Ministry of Transport yesterday signed agreements to build the first, 186-km stretch of the Nigerian Railway Modernization Project. This rail line, to be built in the next three years with $850 million investment, will connect the Nigerian capital to the city of Kaduna. Nigerian Minister of Transport Ibrahim Bio said this was "a landmark signing ceremony of the implementation of the first segment of the Nigerian Railway Modernization Project. The second segment of the project, Lagos-Ibadan, is to be awarded latest by the middle of next month. With the construction of the railway, the dream of achieving a seamless transport network as envisaged in the vision 2020 shall be realized, and the construction will substantially improve the well-being of the Nigerian people." CCECC vice chairman Zhou Tianxiang said they will build an efficient and functional railway system in 36 months: "We will commit ourselves to building a modernized railway system in Nigeria, which would be incomparable in Africa."

China also gave a boost to beleaguered Japanese industry, by ordering 140 bullet trains from manufacturers which hold technology licensing agreements with Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. The trains will run on the Beijing-Shanghai express railway and the new high-speed Beijing-Guangzhou railway, which will be completed in 2012. The trains will be able to run up to 350 kilometers per hour. These projects are part of China's new 13,000-km high-speed rail network, which will give China more high-speed lines than the rest of the world combined by then. So far this year, Kawasaki Heavy had to report a net loss of 6.3 billion yen ($68.4 million), but the Chinese agreement could reverse those losses.