Und direkt ein Dementi von den Chinesen.
(Adds government denial) SHANGHAI, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Uncertainty over a $3.6 billion rail project in China deepened on Wednesday after the government denied a report it had approved a high-speed link between its commercial capital and a prosperous tourist city.
The official Xinhua news agency said the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planner, had approved the 170-km (106-mile) magnetic levitation link between Shanghai and adjacent Hangzhou, a 30 billion yuan project keenly eyed by companies from Germany and elsewhere.
But commission officials told Reuters that final approval for the project had yet to be handed down. Shanghai city government officials and German executives said they had not received word of approval, either.
"Final approval has not yet been granted," an official with the commission's news department told Reuters. "It's hard to say when a decision will be taken."
With trains that float on magnetic cushions and hit a juddering 450 km per hour (280 miles per hour), the rail link could transform a journey of almost two hours between the two eastern cities into a matter of minutes.
The "maglev" line would be a huge boost for a technology that has been dogged by its prohibitive costs since it was invented in the United States in the mid-1960s.
The Xinhua report did not specify which company might win the contract to oversee the building of the line.
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A top contender would be the Transrapid consortium grouping ThyssenKrupp (TKAG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) , Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and the German government, which runs the world's first commercial maglev line -- a 30-km (19-mile) link between downtown Shanghai and its airport.
"We haven't received final word from the government that this project has been approved," said a Transrapid executive in Shanghai. "We also don't know how work for the project would be distributed."
Rivals could include Central Japan Railway Co. (9022.T: Quote, Profile, Research) , which is developing a version of maglev that can race trains up to 500 kph (311 mph), or even French TGVs built by Alstom (ALSO.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) . |