China Railway wins US$390m Russian high-speed rail contract

SHANGHAI: Construction firm China Railway Group Ltd said it won a 2.4 billion yuan ($390 million) contract to build a high-speed railway line in Russia connecting Moscow with the city of Kazan.

The company, which is aiming to expand its business overseas after years of building China's railway network at home, said in a regulatory filing late on Tuesday it expects to complete the project before the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Kazan, in west-central Russia, is one of the venues for the soccer tournament Chinese President Xi Jinping signed billions of dollars worth of deals with Russia last week on a visit to Moscow for the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two.

Russian foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said earlier this month that China had offered to provide 300 billion roubles  ($6 billion) of financing for the high-speed rail project.

The Moscow-Kazan segment is part of a planned 1.068 trillion rouble, 770-kilometre network designed to allow trains to run at up to 400 kilometres per hour. 

Travel time between Moscow and Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, will be cut to 3.5 hours from 14 hours currently.- Reuters