Chinese Companies To Team-Up With Indian Firms To Bid For Five High-Speed Railway Projects

BEIJING: Chinese firms are teaming with Indian companies to jointly bid for five high-speed railway projects in India in an apparent attempt to compete with Japan's plans to build bullet trains.

The Indian government will soon open the projects for public bidding and Tata Projects, one of the fastest growing infrastructure companies in India, is in discussions with an undisclosed Chinese company that owns the advanced technology used in the bid, state-run China Daily reported.

Industry insiders believe the potential partner would be one of China's major rail companies, CSR Corp or CNR Corp, though neither company would confirm they were part of the bid, the front page report from Mumbai titled "Chinese firms eye Indian rail projects" said.

The Daily's report came as Japan has announced financial, technical and operational support for bullet train projects in India during the current visit of PM Narendra Modi to Tokyo. China is expected to unveil its investments in India during President Xi Jinping's visit to New Delhi, scheduled for the third week of this month.

The issue of Chinese investments in Indian railways figured in yesterday's talks between Indian Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Chinese counterpart Gao Hucheng. She told media after the talks that India wants Chinese investments and expertise to upgrade the existing tracks to increase the speed of the trains up to about 160 km besides modernizing stations.

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