Mislaid your train ticket? It won't affect you trip after May 10, as China's railway authority is to allow passengers to buy a replacement ticket and reclaim booked seats from that date.

The Ministry of Railways said Wednesday it is planning to roll out the measures to protect the interests of real-name ticket holders.

Those with lost train tickets can go to the ticket office no less than 20 minutes before ticket checking stops, show identification and some ticket information, and purchase a new ticket that will allow them to use the seats they originally booked, the ministry said.

China has applied the real-name ticketing system to all trains since the beginning of this year to curb the ticket scalping that typically thrives during the Lunar New Year travel rush.

Beijing launched an hourly updated online index of crowds at major tourist sites on Sunday, the day that China's railway broke its record for the amount of passengers carried on any single day of a May Day holiday.

The index, launched at bjta.gov.cn on Sunday, the first day of the holiday, covers six major sites in Beijing, including the Palace Museum, Summer Palace and Badaling section of the Great Wall. It indicates the size of crowds according to a five-level system, with level five being the most crowded.

The Palace Museum, which had the more visitors than the other sites on Sunday - 10,100 people, or 26 percent more than the same day last year - was labeled level four.

"There were so many people at the Palace Museum that we just moved forward with the crowd step by step," said Joaquin Couchot, an 18-year-old exchange student from Chile, who came to Beijing with his four friends for the first time.

"The buildings are magnificent, but I didn't expect that crowd. I should have taken my Chinese friends' advice about visiting on a normal weekend," he said loudly, to be heard above the crowd.

Most tourists hadn't heard of the index. Liu Jing, a postgraduate student at Peking University, said she and her friend wanted to go boating at the Summer Palace on Sunday but the lines were just too long.

"We bought the tickets from scalpers, though they charged an extra 5 yuan (80 cents). The multitude lined up in front scared me," she said.

However, Liu suggested that the index might not deter tourists from visiting heavily crowded sites. "Visitors come here with an awareness of the large crowds, and they may not have a chance to come at another time. So they have little choice but to squeeze into the throng of people visiting the sites."

More than 1 million people visited 24 sites in Beijing on Monday, 2.9 percent more than the same day last year, according to the Beijing Travel Committee. On Sunday, those sites had 675,000 visitors.

Beijing is ranked third in the top 10 list of Chinese tourist destinations during the three-day May Day holiday, according to a report released by the China Tourism Academy and ctrip.com, a travel information website, in late April.

The report - based on hotel and flight reservations, Web surfing and searches and online surveys - said coastal cities such as Sanya in Hainan province and Xiamen in Fujian province are the most attractive for tourists and will get the most visitors. Shanghai, Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, and Jiuzhaigou, in Sichuan province, are also in the top 10.

China's railways carried 8.2 million passengers on Sunday, more than any other single day in a May Day holiday.

Shanghai saw more rail passengers than anywhere else in China: 1.55 million, 18 percent of the Chinese rail passengers that day.

The Ministry of Transportation predicted on Friday that the railway network would carry around 31.1 million passengers during the holiday, 2.42 million more than in 2011.

China’s CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co has seen off international competition to win a $174 million train contract in Malaysia.

Prasana Negara Berhad, the Malaysian government-backed transport company, has ordered 20 sets of six-car light rail vehicles for the extension of the Ampang LRT (light rapid transit) line and the new Putra Heights suburb line serving Kuala Lumpur.

The trains will be delivered in 2015 and 2016.

CSR Zhuzhou beat favourite Bombardier Transportation-Scomi Rail Berhad and four other companies from Korea, China, Spain and Romania for the deal.

Trains currently used on the LRT lines in Kuala Lumpur were supplied by Bombardier.

The Ampang Line contract is CSR Zhuzhou's second in Malaysia.

The company is currently supplying 38 sets of six-car electric multiple units for the government railway company Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) under a $600 million contract placed by the Ministry of Transport in 2010.

These trains are replacing existing vehicles and increasing capacity on KTM’s commuter services in the Klang Valley covering the major cities of Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Klang, Shah Alam and Rawang.

They can travel at 140km/h and carry up to 1,200 people.

A technical expert at CSR Zhuzhou said the Ampang Line trains will have a maximum design load of 1,308 passengers, a speed of 80km/h and a minimum turning radius of 40m, and will be fitted with a specially designed hydraulic braking system.

To cope with the steep slopes and tight curves on the route, they will incorporate technology that has already been applied and verified on light rail vehicles in Izmir, Turkey.

Taking account of Malaysia’s tropical marine climate, anti-corrosion and dehumidification treatment will be applied to all components and equipment, the spokesman said.

Under the terms of the contract, some of the trains will be assembled locally at a new manufacturing plant in the northern state of Perak.

CSR Zhuzhou official Chen Jie said the company plans to use Malaysia as a hub to expand its business in the ASEAN region, which comprises the ten nations of Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

A major Chinese railway company is seeking business opportunities in Tunisia, notably under the framework of a cooperation deal with a Turkish partner, the head of the company said on Wednesday.

Bai Zhongren, the head of China's Railway Company made remark during his visit to the North African country.

Bai, quoted by TAP press agency, said his company is looking for potential deals to manufacture train cars for Tunisian railways and to invest in railway infrastructure projects in the country.

Mehmet Nazif Gunal, chairman of Turkish group MNG, on his part, said he welcomes Tunisia's opening up after last year's unrest, which promoted his group to invest in the country as well as to recruit Tunisian manpower for its operation in the Gulf region and in Africa.

A tourist train in northeast China's Jilin province went into service on Saturday, offering trips between the city of Tumen and Chilbo Mountain in the neighboring Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

A total of 65 Chinese tourists took the train into the DPRK for its first trip and will spend three days and four nights in the country, said Zhao Renjie, deputy director of the Tumen Municipal Bureau of Foreign Affairs and Tourism.

The tourists walked for about 20 minutes to the city of Namyang in the DPRK, which is separated from Tumen by a river, before boarding the train, Zhao said.

The group will visit Mount Chilbo and the city of Chongjin in Hamgyong, and hot spring spas in Kyongsong County during their stay, Zhao said.

The train, which will make one trip between the cities each week, went into service as part of Jilin's efforts to promote cultural exchanges with the DPRK. The province launched a one-day walking tour of Namyang in May 2008.

China decided to grant approved outbound destination status to the DPRK in September 2008. The first Chinese group tour to the DPRK took place on April 12, 2010.

Despite boosting domestic demand, China should not ignore high-end exports and investment opportunities

As many of the policies and measures China adopted to counter the effects of the global financial crisis and boost domestic demand have lost their efficacy and its fixed asset investment has been on an accelerated decline, some domestic enterprises, especially those that have experienced a larger-scale capacity expansion in recent years, are facing growing pressures. This is especially true of the manufacturing sector, and for electrical appliance and railway equipment manufacturers in particular.

Since the 1990s, China has been the largest producer as well as the largest exporter of household appliances. Although the global financial crisis negatively affected the sector, the adoption of a string of stimulus packages at home bolstered their development and the enormous domestic market has served as a haven at a time when external demand has been deteriorating. As a result their investment and capacity have achieved tangible growth.

However, the slowdown in China's economic growth together with the government's steps to phase out preferential measures mean the sector now faces increasing market contraction.

This is the same situation the country's railway equipment manufacturers are facing. The leapfrog development of China's high-speed railways in recent years was a boon to domestic railway equipment manufacturers. However, the fatal accident near Wenzhou in Zhejiang province in July 2011, interrupted the exceptionally fast growth of China's high-speed railway network, and domestic high-speed railway investment has virtually come to a halt.

Statistics show that China's railway investment declined by 252 billion yuan ($40 billion) in 2011 from 762 billion yuan in 2010, a decline of 30 percent. This year's railway investment is expected to decline even further to 40 billion yuan. The high-speed railway sector, which was China's self-developed innovative and strategic sector, will suffer a serious setback if it fails to expand into overseas markets.

Foreign trade plays a very important role in China's economic and social development. According to a report published by the National Bureau of Statistics in late February, the country's economic development was 48.9 percent dependent on exports and imports in 2011, of which 25.5 percent was exports. Exports provide employment for about 100 million workers.

Undoubtedly, to promote the transformation of the country's economic growth mode, we should depend more on domestic demand. But that does not mean we can afford to ignore or abandon the export market as a key driver of economic growth. The high proportion of "Made in China" goods in global production highlights how important it is for China to promote a steady expansion of its exports.

With less than one-tenth of the world's children, China produces more than 70 percent of the world's toys. Such a large output is unlikely to be consumed by the domestic market alone. It is also particularly unwise for China to concede its hard-won global market share to other competitors. China's goal to balance its international payments should be achieved by increasing its imports and outward direct investment, instead of decreasing its exports.

The country's household appliance industry has already established its advantage and will remain the world's largest source of exports for a long time. The country's railway sector, despite suffering a severe blow after the Wenzhou crash, is also setting a successful example in promoting technological exports. China's rail transport equipment has a large market share in some countries, and has established a good reputation. Despite a drastic decrease in domestic railway investment in 2011, exports of the country's railway equipment rose by 30 billion yuan in 2011 from the previous year.

At a time when China is seeking to boost its long-sluggish domestic demand, practical measures should be taken to promote Chinese railway equipment overseas as a way to promote the development of the country's struggling manufacturing sector and project contracting.

The author is a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.

The railway authority has said that passengers who mislaid train tickets will soon be allowed to reclaim booked seats for free, but netizens ridiculed it as the "most complicated procedure ever".

The Ministry of Railways said on Wednesday that, beginning on May 10, people who have lost train tickets can go to the ticket office no less than 20 minutes before ticket checking stops, show identification and some ticket information, and get replacement tickets for their booked seats.

However, they must pay for the replacement tickets and then get a refund at the destination station within 24 hours of arrival, the ministry said.

In addition, they must notify the train conductor when boarding and must get a document from the conductor to prove that their seat is being "used normally".

"Otherwise, some people could take advantage of the policy. Two people could get on board a train with one ticket that they bought and a reissued replacement ticket," said a railway official, who requested anonymity.

A replacement ticket will cost 2 yuan (32 cents).

The measure came after the public called for improvements to the railway network's real-name ticketing system.

The system, which took effect on all trains at the beginning of the year, was adopted to curb the ticket- scalping that typically thrives during the Lunar New Year travel rush.

But passengers soon found that the railway network's real-name ticketing system was not what they expected.

One big complaint was that people who lost tickets had to spend money on a new one, and instead of reclaiming the booked seat, had to take a different train. The ticketing system was designed to allow each passenger to buy only one ticket on a particular train on a particular date, to prevent ticket-scalping.

On Thursday, many netizens welcomed the ministry's move. But some questioned whether it had to be so troublesome.

"I was happy at first to hear the news," said a netizen, "Hahaleier", from Zhejiang province, on Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter. "But does it have to be so complicated? Will it be possible to get a replacement ticket just with my identification certificate?" she asked.

Some netizens suggested that the railway ministry should further improve the real-name ticketing system to make it as convenient as the air ticketing system.

The anonymous railway official said that the current solution was made out of consideration for "the management of tickets", declining to make further comment.

Metro AG, Germany's biggest retailer, reported a wider-than-expected first-quarter loss after cutting prices of electronics goods to win back shoppers.

The net loss was 82 million euros ($108 million) compared with a 3-million-euro loss a year earlier, the Dusseldorf-based company said on Thursday in a statement. Analysts predicted a deficit of 55.6 million euros. Metro reiterated that earnings this year are likely to equal those of last year, while sales will increase.

Earnings were hurt by "extensive price investments" at the Media-Saturn electronics unit, plus higher expansion costs, Metro said.

Chief Executive Officer Olaf Koch is seeking to address declining sales at Media-Saturn, which started selling electrical goods online last year, a decade after US competitor Amazon.com Inc entered the market.

"We are moving in the right direction, but it's still very early days and we have a lot of work to do," Koch said on Thursday.

Metro posted a loss before interest and tax of 9 million euros compared with earnings of 142 million euros last year, missing the average estimate for a 55.6-million-euro profit.

'Better prices'

"During the past few months we have invested massively into better prices and additional customer services," Koch said in the statement.

The CEO expects headcount to fall at Metro's Dusseldorf headquarters as the retailer seeks to save about 100 million euros a year, he said. Koch didn't give an estimate of how many jobs may be cut.

First-quarter revenue rose 2.2 percent to 15.6 billion euros, matching analysts' estimates, led by growth in the emerging regions of eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

Sales in the first four months of the year rose 1 percent from a year earlier, Metro said on Thursday. "In the second quarter we will make progress regarding sales performance," Koch said.

Sales in Germany, where Metro gets almost 40 percent of revenue, rose 1.6 percent, helped by online sales at Media-Saturn and an increase in customer visits to the Cash & Carry chain.

German retail sales rebounded in March as declining unemployment, slowing inflation and higher wages bolstered households' purchasing power, according to a report on Monday.

Shrewd strategy

In Western Europe excluding Germany, revenue fell 1.2 percent. Economic confidence in the eurozone declined more than economists forecast in April as the region's slump showed signs of deepening, a report showed on April 26.

Sales at Cash & Carry, Metro's biggest unit, rose 3.7 percent to 7.3 billion euros, the retailer said.

Metro said in March that it will focus on Cash & Carry and Media-Saturn and cut investment in Kaufhof department stores and Real supermarkets. Koch said he doesn't see any immediate disposals of the units, which he qualified as "non-core".

"The strategy adopted by the new CEO to focus on top-line growth is certainly a shrewd one, but could take a toll on the margin in the short term," said Pierre-Edouard Boudot, a Paris-based analyst at Natixis.

"We believe the company will be penalized by a significantly non-food product/format mix and a rather unfavorable country mix," Boudot said.

CHINA: The first metro line in Suzhou opened on April 28, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and simultaneous departures from the Zhongnan Jie and Mudu termini at 11.18.

Suzhou Rail Transit Co's Line 1 runs 25·7 km from east to west with 24 stations. Systra undertook planning work, Siemens and Nanjing Research Institute of Electronic Technology supplied CBTC signalling, the rolling stock was manufactured by CSR and rail grinding machinery by Harsco. 

Work is underway on the 26·6 km north-south Line 2, which is scheduled to open in 2014. This will link the city's North station with Yingchunnanlu in Wuzhong Economic Development Zone. There will be 17 underground and five surface stations, with an interchange with Line 1 at Guanjinan Road. The Nanjing SR Puzhen Rail Transport joint venture is to deliver 23 five-car Type B2 trainsets from May 2013. 

Two further metro lines are included in the the city's transport master plan.

CHINA: CNR Dalian has begun delivering 23 six-car Type B trains for Tianjin metro Line 2. 

The air-conditioned trains have a total capacity of 1832 passengers and top speed of 80 km/h. They will be equipped for automatic train operation, with 2 min headways. 

The 22·8 km east-west Line 2 will run from the main station to the airport economic zone, with 18 of its 19 stations underground.

Two gas and fuel compounds in Shanghai that endanger the safe operation of the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway have been ordered to be renovated or removed this year, the local work safety authority said .

The gas and fuel facilities in the compounds, both in suburban Jiading District, are located too close to the tracks, officials said.

Vice Mayor Ai Baojun said the government "will strengthen crackdown on projects and sites that are potential dangers."

The city government has this year targeted nine projects which are deemed to have a huge potential for accidents.

A gas supply station, which has a 196-square-meter storage for liquid gas cylinders, is only 50 meters from the Beijing-Shanghai rail line, according to the work safety administration.

The station, first built in 1996, is about 15 meters from the Shanghai-Nanjing rail line, near the Beijing-Shanghai line, officials said.

In another place, two private companies, affiliated to the West Shanghai Group, have two tanks, in which 160 tons of diesel fuel is stored, more than 100 meters from the Beijing-Shanghai railway.

The work safety administration has demanded that "barriers and explosion-proof equipment be added at the sites."

China will develop faster and smarter high-speed trains offering passengers a wide variety of choices, according to a special plan for the country’s high-speed train technology development during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015) recently released by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The country’s high-speed rail development has entered “a second spring” after an “unexpected brake.”
 

The country's Ministry of Railways (MOR) should work out a detailed plan to encourage private investment into the railway sector to address the urgent issue of tight cash flow and introduce full competition in railway operations, in order to achieve breakthroughs in the sector's long-awaited reform and sustainable development, analysts said yesterday.

"The key challenges facing the railway ministry now are the lack of sufficient cash flow and inability to repay its huge debts. There is also a problem of inefficient operation of high-speed railways, which added to the ministry's non-performing assets and pushed up its already high debt ratio," said Zhao Jian, a professor specializing in railway economics at Beijing Jiaotong University.

"To address the immediate lack of cash flow, the ministry should work out a detailed plan to encourage investment of private capital into the sector and introduce full competition in railway operations," he said.

The MOR reported a loss of 7 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) in the first quarter, according to an audit report published Wednesday on the website of China Foreign Exchange Trade System under the central bank.

The figure is almost double the 3.8 billion yuan loss reported in the same period of 2011.

It posted cash flow of 177 billion yuan as of the end of March, a decrease of 23 billion yuan from the end of last year.

The ministry also reported an outstanding debt of 2.43 trillion yuan as of the end of March and debt ratio of 60.62 percent, almost the same ratio as at the end of last year.

"The ministry's existing debt ratio is still at a normal level compared with other sectors with high levels of fixed asset investment, such as the air transportation sector which has a debt ratio of almost 80 percent. The real problem facing the railway ministry is its inability to repay the debts which are mainly borrowed from banks," said Li Lei, an industry analyst with China Securities Co.

The debt issues and tight cash flows have slowed down the ministry's investment in new projects, Li said.

The fixed assets investment of the railway sector reached 60 billion yuan in the first quarter, down 51 percent from the previous year, while investment in infrastructure stood at only 43 billion yuan, down 60.9 percent from a year earlier and accounting for only 10 percent of the full-year target of 406 billion yuan, data released last month by the MOR showed.

"All these problems are eventually attributed to the existing system of the ministry which features a mix of government administration and enterprise management system," Zhao said.

In March, the State Council said the government is working on a reform plan for the railway sector which will focus on the separation of the functions of the government from those of enterprises and State assets management authorities. The plan is also intended to ensure the participation of private capital in this sector.

"Diversifying financing channelled by introducing private capital could ease the sector's cash strain. But it will be hard for the ministry to attract private capital unless it introduces market-oriented operational mechanism to improve its profitability," Li said.

renowned German consulting agency SCI Verkeh has released a research report, unveiling the list of the world’s top 10 rail transit equipment manufacturers in 2010. As a result, CSR headed the list. The top five placers were CSR, Bombardier, CNR, Alston and Siemens.

SCI Verkehr analyzed major products, plant locations, product structures and strategic directions of 60 rail transit equipment manufacturers in the world on the basis of statements disclosed by these manufacturers and the data provided by relevant authorities, and visited these manufacturers. There are currently 170 rail transit equipment manufacturers with 330 manufacturing plants in the world. The 60 manufacturers covered in the report are highly representative with nearly 200 plants.

With the mass manufacture of high-speed EMUs represented by CRH380A and key rail transit products represented by large-power electric locomotives and metro vehicles, CSR has grown rapidly in the global rail transit equipment manufacturing market. Besides extensive applications at home, CSR has sold its products to more than 60 countries and regions in the world, achieved a year-on-year increase of 160 percent in overseas sales, and exported key products to developed countries and regions such as Europe, Singapore and Australia. CSR has played an increasingly prominent role in the world rail transit realm.

SCI Verkehr, an authoritative international consulting company, specializes in railway and logistics strategy consultation, boasts an extensive international expert network and has reached out to the rest of the world. The company publishes diverse locomotive market reports every year and released market analysis reports to the world in 15 languages every week. Its analysis and evaluation of locomotive manufacturing, sales and operation markets has drawn close attention and gained great recognition from the world railway industry.

China and Thailand have agreed to beef up cooperation in the land and water transportation sectors, according to a joint statement issued by the two governments on Thursday following Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's first official China visit.

The two countries also signed an agreement on facilitating railway cooperation during her visit, particularly in the area of high-speed rail construction.

According to the joint statement, the two countries agreed to boost cooperation in multiple areas in order to further their bilateral partnership.

They vowed to promote greater cooperation in traditional and non-traditional security sectors and jointly address terrorism, trafficking and illegal migration.

They will facilitate two-way investment and continue to promote the use of local currencies in bilateral trade and investment in order to lower the impact of exchange rate risks, the statement says.

The two countries are also committed to strengthening cooperation in the areas of agriculture, science and technology, ocean and environmental protection, it says.

Both sides plan to set up a joint laboratory for climate and marine ecosystem research and seek closer cooperation in the clean energy sector, according to the statement.

To step up cultural exchanges, the two countries agreed to promote the establishment of Chinese and Thai language and culture centers and encourage more students to study abroad, the statement says.

They also pledged to enhance cooperation in tourism, public health, water resource management, flood and disaster prevention and post-disaster reconstruction, according to the statement.

The statement was issued at the end of Yingluck's visit, which lasted from April 17 to 19.