Aerial photo taken on Feb. 1, 2021 shows the construction site of Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou inter-city railway in east China's Zhejiang province. photo: Xinhua

 
The Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou inter-city railway in East China's Zhejiang Province, the first Chinese high-speed railway controlled by private capital, will officially begin on Saturday. The launch of the railway marks another successful implementation of China's public-private partnership (PPP) project in the infrastructure field.

With an investment of 44.9 billion yuan ($7 billion), the railway section starts from Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang, and passes through Shaoxing and Taizhou in the province, stretching 266.9 kilometers. It has a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

The new line is an important project to help boost the regional integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta. It is expected to halve travel time between Hangzhou and Taizhou to about one hour, the Global Times learned from China National Railway Corporation on Friday.

It is the first Chinese high-speed rail line controlled by private capital. A private consortium led by Fosun Group holds 51 percent of the shares while China National Railway Corporation and the local government hold 49 percent, CCTV reported.

The PPP project is an example of win-win cooperation between the government and private capital, said Zhou Huafu, a member of the Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission, who oversaw the project.

"The local government has leveraged a major infrastructure project worth 44 billion yuan with a one-time investment of only 4.2 billion yuan, which has greatly reduced the financial pressure placed on the government. Social capital can take this opportunity to successfully enter the field of high-speed train projects and obtain stable and expected earnings," Zhou said.

It is one of the first eight PPP funded high-speed railway projects, with the private sector having a holding status, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Data from the National PPP Comprehensive Information Platform database shows that in November 2021, 78 new PPP projects were put into the database, with investment worth 140.1 billion yuan, up 16 percent from the previous month and 34.3 percent from 2020. Civil engineering, transportation, ecological and environmental protection is among the most popular investment fields.