China eyes faster high-speed trains

BEIJING - China will work to further improve technologies to increase the speeds of high-speed trains, according to a document published Wednesday by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Moreover, by the year 2020, China will finish construction on 16,000 km of high-speed railways, said a special plan for the country's high-speed train technology development during the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015) period, which was posted on the ministry's website on Wednesday.

The special plan aims to ensure the sustainable development of the core technology of the country's high-speed trains and enhance the safety of its high-speed railways on the basis of independent innovation.

To that end, major tasks in the plan include efforts to improve systematic, intelligent and energy-saving technologies for high-speed trains, the document said.

The plan also said China will research and develop high-speed train products for export.

The plan set a target for doing research and making innovations in the permanent magnet motor technology for the train's power system, which, according to Ding Rongjun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, is expected to considerably conserve energy.

Moreover, intelligent technology will allow trains' speed control, condition determination and fault detection operations to be conducted digitally, Ding was quoted as saying in the Thursday edition of the Beijing News.