China will spend 8.4 billion yuan (US$ 1.02 billion) in rebuilding a 100-year-old railway in its northeast.

The railway, built in 1901, connects Harbin, capital of northeast Heilongjiang province, with Manzhouli, a city near China-Russia border.

During the past 50 years, China has invested over 2.3 billion yuan (US$ 278 million) to renovate the railway, an important transportation line between China and Russia. Experts said that one purpose of the rebuild project on the 935-kilometer-long railway is to strengthen trade tie with neighboring Russia.

The project, scheduled to start early in March, will last for about four years and become a key project of Ministry of Railways of the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005). After completion, traveling between Harbin and Manzhouli by train will be less than ten hours.

The ministry predicted that the demand for passenger and cargo transport in China will have an annual increase of 4.4 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively, from 2001 to 2005.

( Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2002)