China Railway Corporation says it will beef up efforts to complete major projects like the Hefei-Fuzhou high-speed rail link within this year.
The company fine-tunes the annual targets for rail projects, increasing the number of newly-launched ones from 44 to 48, the budget from 700 billion yuan to 720 billion yuan and the total length from 6,600 kilometers to 7,000 kilometers.
Meanwhile, it aims to complete the high-speed railway connecting Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui province, with Fuzhou, capital of East China's Fujian province, as well as some under-construction railways stretching across Central and West China.
The Hefei-Fuzhou rail link is the third high-speed railway that accesses the province, following the one connecting Beijing with Shanghai and the one from Hefei to Bengbu. With a budget of 109.8 billion yuan, the 806-kilometer railway passes Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, allowing trains to run at a maximum speed of 300 kilometers per hour. The Anhui section is designed to stretch 343 kilometers.
The project having kicked off in late 2009 had been planned to be wrapped up in 2015. However, after a routine meeting held recently by the State Council, the company said, the deadline was shortened to the end of 2014.
According to rail authorities, track-laying, which was finished in the Anhui section in March, will be completed in the whole rail line in September.