Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei mull transit investment firm

Will aim to help regional integration by boosting transport links

Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province in North China are mulling the possibility of jointly investing in transportation projects to facilitate regional integration, a senior official said Wednesday.

The three local governments and China Railway Corporation plan to establish a rail transit investment company with a total investment of 10 billion yuan ($1.63 billion), Yang Chongyong, executive vice governor of Hebei, told a regional development forum in Beijing.

Transportation is one of three key areas - with the other two being ecology and industrial development - that authorities should first make breakthroughs in when promoting integrated development of the three areas, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli said at a meeting in September.

"One of the key investment fields should be building a commuter rail network that connects Beijing and neighboring areas," Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, told the Global Times Wednesday.

For instance, about 300,000 people who work in the capital live in Yanjiao, a township in Hebei that is 20 kilometers from Beijing, because of cheap housing prices there, and they mainly rely on buses for daily commute. An efficient rail transit network to shorten travel times is urgently needed, he said.

Zhou Zhengyu, director of Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, said the three areas will be connected by a comprehensive transportation network comprised of bullet trains, inter-city railways, regional express lines and subway networks.

The inter-city express railways that connect the capital with Tangshan and -Zhangjiakou in Hebei is under preparation while authorities are mulling a plan for regional express rail lines, he told the forum.

Unlike US city clusters that mainly connect with highways, developing rail network to connect cities is more in accordance with China because of its high-speed train technology and population, said Zhang Gui, deputy director of the Center for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Development Research at Hebei University of Technology.

"The blueprint will need massive investment, so setting up an investment company can also attract private investment to fund projects," he told the Global Times Wednesday.

The integration push comes at a time when Beijing is facing "metropolis syndrome" problems such as pollution, Hebei is struggling with industrial upgrading and Tianjin is trying to reduce dependence on property investment.

Yang said Hebei is experiencing "the most difficult period" in more than two decades, as the shutdown of steel firms, cement plants and coal mines to curb air pollution and relieve industrial overcapacity has dragged down the province's GDP and industrial output in the first three quarters of this year to third-lowest among China's 31 provincial-level regions.

The National Development and Reform Commission is drafting an integration development plan for the three areas, which has not been publicized yet. Experts hope the plan will eliminate administrative barriers to regional integration.

The three areas should establish a mechanism to share some fiscal and tax revenues, and local government officials should be evaluated not only by their own area's development but also those of adjunct areas, Jin Bei, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said at the forum.