Chinese companies to bid on U.S. high-speed railway projects

BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese companies plan to bid for contracts of building high-speed railways in the United States as China is willing to share its advanced technologies, a senior official said on Saturday.

"We have organized related companies to take part in bidding, and we have signed memorandum of cooperation with the railway authority in California,"said Wang Zhiguo, vice minister of railways on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislature.

U.S. President Barack Obama pledged in January to spend 8 billion U.S. dollars for rail projects including the high-speed systems in California, Florida and Illinois.

China currently has about 3,300 kilometers of operational high-speed railways, the world's longest, on which bullet trains gallop at an average speed of 350 kmph, and it plans to expand the network to 13,000 kilometers by 2012, according to the Ministry of Railways (MOR).

During Obama's visit to China last November, MOR signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation with the General Electric Company on technology research.

In addition to the United States, Wang said dozens of countries including Russia, Brazil and Turkey have shown willingness to cooperate with China on high-speed railways. Some projects are under construction.

MOR has reached agreements with Russia and Brazil on collaboration. Further preparation and research is underway, he said.

"China wants to share our advanced and mature technology with other countries to promote the world's high-speed railway development," Wang said.

Answering a question on whether China has disputes on intellectual property rights with foreign companies, He Huawu, chief engineer with MOR, said China's technology is independently developed, and there are no such rows.

He noted China has applied for more than 940 patents on high-speed railway technologies.