A company for investing in, constructing and operating a commuter railway between the city center of Tianjin municipality and its Binhai New Area was founded on Wednesday.

Jinbin Inter-city Railway Co,  funded by the Ministry of Railway and Tianjin municipality, plans to pump over 11.3 billion yuan into the construction of the railway.

The company says the planned 44.8-kilometer rail, designed to reach a speed of 350 km/h, will run from downtown Tianjin Railway Station to Yujiapu Station in Binhai’s CBD. The construction is scheduled to begin in October and should be completed in 2011.

The railway will be connected with the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway, China’s first high speed railway. Upon its completion, the travel time by train from Beijing to Binhai will be shortened from the current 56 minutes to 45 minutes.

The construction of the rail aims to accelerate the development of Binhai, the second overall reform pilot zone in China after the Pudong New Area in Shanghai.

By Guo Changdong