In the first eight months of 2009, the Ministry of Railways invested Rmb1.35bn in 11 railway projects in Yunnan, one of the provinces least served by the national rail system. Among Yunnan’s 16 major cities, only seven are connected by railway lines.

The MOR has prioritised the Yunnan building projects and plans to add 1,780km of tracks by 2020, bringing the total to more than 4,000km. By then, the provincial capital Kunming will become a rail hub with eight lines, connecting it to major cities such as Shanghai, Chongqing and Chengdu, and four lines linking it with Vietnam, Laos, Burma and India.

Currently, 10 of the 11 projects are still under construction and three new ones are scheduled to start within a year.

One of the most important is the Dali extension project, which has been completed and is expected to enter service by 1 October. This is an extension of the existing Guangzhou-Dali line that will connect to the Yunnan-Tibet Line currently under construction. Costing Rmb4.5bn, the project is technically very demanding. The line is 164km long, but nearly 100km is comprised of bridges and tunnels. The original plan was to finish construction by June 2008 but the difficulties encountered during construction meant that completion had to be delayed until September this year.