China will become a high-speed rail leader in the world after several years of rapid development, Ignacio Barron, the director of High Speed of International Union of Railways (UIC) said on Wednesday.

He told Xinhua at the High-Speed Rail Summit in London that he ever took the high-speed rail from Beijing to Tianjin and it was "very fast and very comfortable."

In order to raise capacity, China has to develop high-speed rail network, which is the most effective and environmentally-friendly solution, he said.

As planned, China will build 42 high-speed passenger rail lines with a total length of 13,000 kilometers in the three years to come. Barron admired China's rapid pace in developing the high-speed rail.

As for the technical challenges, he said it is always necessary to cooperate with countries with advanced technologies at the very beginning. But he believed China will develop its own new technology soon.

Barron said in a speech at the summit that there are a lot of advantages to develop high-speed rail. It not only increases capacity, but also provides the most safe and environmentally-friendly transport means.

At present, the world has a total of around 10,700 kilometers operational high-speed rail, including about 2,000 kilometers in Japan and about 1,900 kilometers in France.

Representatives of high-speed rail operators from France, Japan, Germany, Spain and Italy introduced their plans for future development at the summit.

The High-Speed Rail Summit was organized by Steer Davies Gleave, Europe's leading independent consultancy working worldwide across the transport industry. It was founded in 1978 and is now headquartered in London.

According to the UIC, high-speed rail refers to railways with a speed of at least 200 kilometers an hour. The first high speed rail was put into use in Japan in 1964.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2009)