International relations

South Africa, China sign rail pact

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27 August 2010

South Africa and China, which operates the largest high-speed rail network in the world, have signed an agreement that seeks to promote co-operation, trade and investment in rail projects between the two countries.

The agreement was signed in Beijing on Wednesday by Chinese Railway Minister Liu Zhijun and South African Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele, who was part of a delegation accompanying South African President Jacob Zuma on his three-day state visit to China, which ended on Thursday.

Ndebele said that South Africa could move faster from a developing to a developed country by transporting people and goods efficiently, effectively and with the least cost to the environment and economy.

"We are confident that our friends in the world, including the Chinese, can help us leapfrog many stages on our journey to becoming a developed country," he said.

Zhijun said his country was willing to share its expertise in the development of railways networks.

"We are willing to share this expertise with South Africa. We operate 86 000km of railway track, 7 000km of high speed rail, and we have 13 000 high-speed projects under construction.

"We operate the largest network of high-speed rail in the world," Zhijun said. "The Shanghai to Beijing railway line is the largest in the world, but in addition we are specialists in the development of highland rail, high speed rail, upgrading of networks and their maintenance."

The agreement recognises the need to find new approaches for consolidating, expanding and deepening the rapid developments in the transport sector between South and China.

It seeks to will foster co-operation in rail infrastructure maintenance and development, financing, network safety and regulation, technology transfer, harmonisation of technical standards and human resource development.

The agreement includes identifying research institutions and private organisations such as universities and private companies that have the technical and financial capacity to implement specific projects in the transport sector.

The two countries agreed that there would be an exchange of engineers and related professionals and broad cooperation in the areas of intelligent transport systems, and environmentally sustainable and labour-intensive best practices.

Source: BuaNews