China's transportation bottleneck may persist in the second half of this year, hitting the rail system particularly hard amid demand for coal, oil and iron ore, according to a researcher with the country's top planning agency.
Rising coal demand in the fourth quarter from new power plants may worsen the bottleneck, Wang Desheng, a researcher with the transport research department at the National Development and Reform Commission, wrote in a report.
Railroads carry the bulk of China's cargo and passengers, and more than half of cargo capacity is used to move coal in peak periods, the report said. About a tenth of the railways' capacity is used to carry iron ore, it said.
China is trying to slow economic growth to 7 percent this year from a seven-year high of 9.1 percent last year by clamping down on lending to industries such as steel and real estate. The investment boom has contributed to transport bottlenecks, energy shortages and rising raw materials demand.
Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said last week that easing the transportation bottleneck is important for the government efforts to slow economic growth, Xinhua News Agency reported.
China's railways, which extend 72,000km, account for 6 percent of the world's total, the China Youth Daily reported last month, citing official data. Average rail length per person in the nation of 1.3 billion is less than that of a cigarette, it said.
The amount of cargo transported via rail, roads, water and air in China is expected to rise 5.1 percent to about14.5 billion tonnes this year. Among that, about 1.9 billion tonnes of commodities are expected to be carried by railways, 6.6 percent more than last year.
Rail companies in China transported 1.06 billion tonnes of goods in the first half, up 8.7 percent from a year earlier. About 5.85 billion tonnes of commodities were moved via roads during the period, up 15.3 percent from a year earlier, Wang wrote in his report.
Meanwhile, the energy-guzzling Chinese economy is expected to import a record 110 million tonnes of crude oil this year, a rise of 21 percent from last year, state media reported yesterday.
The world's second largest oil consumer will also import 40 million tonnes of refined oil, up 40 percent from last year, the People's Daily web site said, citing the commerce ministry.
China only became a net importer of oil a decade ago, but rapid economic growth has made the country increasingly reliant on overseas producers, which now provide a third of China's oil supply.
With the economy booming, a government think tank is projecting car sales to increase 33 percent this year to 2.6 million units.
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