China has now become one of the biggest manufacturers of high-speed train sets, and is expanding its export business, especially in Southeast Asia.
It’s an outgrowth of the country’s priority development of its own high-speed network which has added 16,000 miles of high-speed lines in the past 20 years; it now has two-thirds of the world’s ‘bullet’ trains.
After originally importing trains and technology for the first lines, Chinese company CRRC began developing its own. Its latest units are claimed to be able to hold sustained speeds of 350 km/hr, which represents a new speed record. Units that can cruise at 400 km/hr are under development.
CRRC is partnered with Japan on a number of new projects, including lines from China to Laos and Thailand, and a line in Indonesia from Jakarta to Bandung.
