高铁改变中国

choi

Keith Bradsher, 高铁改变中国. 纽约时报中文网, Sept 25, 2013
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20130925/c25chinarail/

, which is translated from

Keith Bradsher, Speedy Trains Transform China; Quicker trips and less pollution, and higher productivity. New York Times, Sept 24, 2013.

Quote:

"The cavernous rail station here [Changsha] for China’s new high-speed trains was nearly deserted when it opened less than four years ago. Not anymore. Practically every train is sold out, although they leave for cities all over the country every several minutes.

"The Chinese government is already struggling with nearly $500 billion in overall rail debt. Most of it was incurred for the high-speed rail system and financed with bank loans  

"Train ridership has soared partly because China has set fares on high-speed rail lines at a little less than half of comparable airfares and then refrained from raising them. On routes that are four or five years old, prices have stayed the same as blue-collar wages have more than doubled. That has resulted in many workers, as well as business executives, switching to high-speed trains. Airlines have largely halted service on routes of less than 300 miles when high-speed rail links open. They have reduced service on routes of 300 to 470 miles. The double-digit annual wage increases give the Chinese enough disposable income that domestic airline traffic has still been growing 10 percent a year. That is the second-fastest growth among the world’s 10 largest domestic aviation markets, after India

choi

Taiwan High Speed Rail, originally a private company in the mode of Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) was almost bankrupt and basically taken over by the central government.

(1) Taiwan High Speed Rail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_High_Speed_Rail
(based primarily on Japan's Shinkansen technology;
Ridership initially fell short of forecasts, but grew from fewer than 40,000 passengers per day in the first few months of operation to over 129,000 passengers per day in June 2013; "company was put under new management in September 2009 with the aim of turning around the company's finances with government help in arranging refinancing of the loans. The government took majority control of the company after the election of its new board on November 10, 2009")

(2) 張旭宏,  終於賺錢了！高鐵去年獲利近60億元. 中華電視股份有限公司, Mar 30, 2013
http://news.cts.com.tw/cnyes/money/201203/201203300970202.html 　
(台灣高鐵今(30)日公告去年財報，稅後淨利57.8億元獲利，為通車5年首次獲利 * * * 台灣高鐵最大的負擔還是折舊和利息支出 * * * 利息支出則和前一年差不多，一年要負擔 88億元利息。截至去年，累積虧損仍高達735億元，所有獲利用來彌補虧損後，虧損仍有677億元")　

Note: The exchange rate is roughly $1 = NT$30.