BEIJING (Caixin Online) — China’s two largest railroad equipment manufacturers have expressed interest in building bullet trains for the U.S. state of California, sources with knowledge of the matter say.
The moves by China CNR Corp. and CSR Corp. mark the country’s latest attempt to export bullet-train technology after building a network of 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) — the world’s largest.
CSR submitted documents expressing interest to the California High-Speed Rail Authority on Wednesday, said a source close to China Railway Corp. (CRC), the operator of the country’s railroad network.
The authority is in charge of planning, building and operating California’s high-speed rail system, which would be the first in the U.S. The western state plans to buy up to 95 bullet trains that can travel a maximum of 350 kilometers per hour (220 miles per hour), but usually run at 300 kph.
CNR, submitted similar documents to the California rail authority earlier, a source from that company said.
The documents mainly included information on the companies’ qualifications, technologies, experience and details of their trains, the source close to the CRC said. Authorities in the U.S. state would have to scrutinize and approve the documents before the companies could take part in bidding to build the trains.
A group of officials from the Ministry of Commerce, CRC, China Railway Construction Corp. , CSR and banks will visit the U.S. on Oct. 29 to promote the country’s high-speed trains, the source said.
The group does not include representatives of CNR, meaning the two Chinese companies may be competing against each other.
Competition for the project is sure to be fierce because many foreign companies, including firms from Japan and Spain, have also expressed interest, said a source from another equipment company.
California’s high-speed rail project will run 1,287 kilometers from Los Angeles to San Francisco, with total investment of $68 billion.
Due to U.S. law, the companies that win bids to build trains would have to do so in a factory in California.
China, led by Premier Li Keqiang, is pushing hard to be involved in high-speed train projects in countries such as the U.K., Thailand, Russia and elsewhere. It has helped build a railroad in Turkey.
A consortium involving four Chinese companies presented the only bid for a Mexican project to build a 210-kilometer high-speed line. That project is to break ground this year. - By Lu Bingyang - © Provided by MarketWatch
Rewritten by Guo Kai
See this report at Caixin Online. Follow Caixin on Twitter at @caixin.
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