The World Bank's board of executive directors has approved a loan of 200 million U.S. dollars to help expand capacity on the railway between Guizhou and Yunnan provinces.

The World Bank's China office told Xinhua on Tuesday that the project aimed to provide a major increase in capacity to the Liupanshui-Zhanyi (Liu-Zhan) section of the Guiyang-Kunming railway line, improving passenger services and freight transport by halving the transit times and enabling operation of double-stack container trains.

The 254-kilometer Liu-Zhan line is at the western end of the Shanghai-Kunming corridor and crosses the watershed between the Yangtze and Pearl rivers.

It was built as a single track in 1966 and electrified in 1988,and is operating close to capacity, but below forecast demand, as the economy in western China continues to grow.

To expand its capacity to and from Yunnan, the government plans to realign the track to allow higher speeds; double-track the section between Liupanshui and Zhanyi, and remodel the Liupanshui terminal area.

On completion, the project will quadruple the capacity of the line and improve sectional travel times significantly, meeting the growing demand for transport between Guizhou and Yunnan.

John Scales, World Bank transport sector coordinator in Beijing and task manager for the Third National Railway Project, said the additional capacity must rapidly be developed.

The World Bank supported the provision of additional capacity, particularly in the West, together with meeting the challenges of functioning in a market economy amid growing competition from other transport modes and the greater environmental and energy efficiency benefits railways offers.

The total project cost is estimated at approximately 8.8 billion yuan.