New developments in Kunming

Kunming south development, January 2010

In January this year, we visited Kunming. The city has big plans to expand to the South. Big plans. Today, the SCMP writes:

Kunming, in southwestern China, is the capital city of Yunnan province. It is building six underground railway lines in a bid to improve accessibility. Lines 1, 2, and 6 are scheduled to be completed and operating by the end of 2012, followed by Line 3 in 2014, and Lines 4 and 5, which are due to open in 2018.

The crossing of these subway lines will be the opportunity to create a landmark, according to the vice-mayor He Bo:

One of the major projects at the intersection of three of the lines will include a 456-metre-high skyscraper – “the city’s future landmark in the core business district”, He said.

But there’s more. Kunming has a big and beautiful lake in the south east part of the city. The lake is now heavily polluted, but offers potential for great development. Into what? Right, en eco-city!

Apart from the skyscraper project, Kunming also hopes to invite investors to participate in a 25 billion yuan redevelopment of the 8.73 square kilometre Chao Hai district in the southwestern part of the city. The area will be developed into an “eco-city”, surrounded by a lake.

As for the development model, Kunming looks at the Hong Kong model, of creating real estate value with the development of public transport:

Mayor He, however, believed land value would have a greater upside potential when the metro system was completed. “The Kunming [property market] will present a big surprise to investors over the next three to five years,” he said.

Read the whole story here:

Read the rest of this entry »

Chengdu Subway: Day One Photos | Chengdu Living

The Chengdu Subway just opened last week. Website ChengduLiving.com has some first impressions: Chengdu Subway: Day One Photos | Chengdu Living.

Moving Westwards

The New York Times reports about investments in China’s Far West:

At a conference this week, Chinese officials called the investment in western China a strategic move, designed to raise the living standards of the region’s people and shift growth away from China’s prosperous coastal areas.

The areas include Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Southwest China’s Tibet autonomous region, and Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

via Spending for Stability in China’s Far West – NYTimes.com.

And not only the government is moving westwards. Also electronics manufacturer Foxconn – moves westwards, to Zhengzhou that is:

Foxconn and senior officials of Zhenzhou and Henan are working on the details of an agreement to build the plant, said a spokesman for the municipal government.

The first phase of the plant will measure 133 (!!) hectares.

The new plant is to employ 300,000 people in the long run. About 100,000 people are to be recruited in the near future, said a recruitment advertisement on the official website of Henan’s Hebi city.

Highway in Xi’an

We already showed you the pictures, but now we have moving images! In July 2009, Xi’an opened the brand new 8-lane Xi’an Xianyang International Airport Express Highway (See pictures of the opening ceremony). But half a year after opening, the 20,6 kilometer long road does not seem to be used much – to put it mildly.

We took the highway with a taxi during rush hour in Xi’an. You can see for yourself on the images below. Is this a so-called “Grand Travail Inutil”? We’re inclined to think so, at least for the next couple of years. Our driver said: “I think we’ll never have enough cars to fill this road”, but that might not be true either…

Go West enters Xi’an…

The last week, we had several discussions about China’s stimulus package in infrastructure. Is the Chinese government spending too much money in 8 lines wide highways and 300 km/h bullet trains? Or is all this ambitious construction proof of a great vision, and only a preparation on the developments to come? We are not the only ones discussing this subject; Bill Bonner posted an article with a strong opinion here. Eamon Javers recently wrote a little more subtle, interesting article on the same subject on Politico.com.

This afternoon we arrived in Xi’an. We have seen quite some empty housing, offices, roads etcetera throughout China the last year. But this was quite something, once again… Maybe the stimulus package of the Chinese is indeed mainly focussed on keeping the concrete mills running.

Read the rest of this entry »

Global Times – Bullet train won’t derail growth: govt

By Song Shengxia and Deng Jingyin

The construction of a nationwide high-speed passenger-rail network will be an engine driving China’s economy, the Ministry of Railways said Wednesday, refuting an earlier report that the system may instead put the brakes on the nation’s economic growth. The 350-kilometer-per-hour railway linking Wuhan and Guangzhou, set to begin operations Saturday, trumpets China’s ambitious 2 trillion-yuan ($293 billion) effort to speed up the country’s railway system.

But some people have raised questions as to whether the mammoth project, aimed at boosting the country’s GDP growth through infrastructure investment, will be too much for travelers to afford, and whether it will be a drag on the economy in the long term.

Read the rest of this entry »

High-Speed Trains Are Making China Smaller

A story in Newsweek about the fast expanding high speed railway network in China. Many cities in Central and Western China will be connected to the East Coast by bullet trains in the near future. Read High-Speed Trains Are Making China Smaller | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com.

Chongqing to have rail link with Rotterdam — Shanghai Daily

The story is already some weeks old, but I stumbled upon it today. The vice mayor of Chongqing (a city of >30 million souls in central China) has said his city will have a cargo railway straight to Rotterdam, the Netherlands before 2012. This will greatly boost economic potential of central and western China. More on Shanghai Daily.

Chinese economic growth accelerates to raise hopes for global recovery | Business | guardian.co.uk

In todays article in the Guardian, one of the reasons we see so much new highways in the West (of China) might be revealed: “as much of the demand [related to the economic growth in the first quarter - GWP] comes from stimulus-related infrastructure projects or stimulus-backed subsidy programmes, this raises the issue of sustainability”, so read this:

via Chinese economic growth accelerates to raise hopes for global recovery | Business | guardian.co.uk.