China will double its high speed rail network by the end of 2015 to about 12000 miles which will be four times the Europe and Japanese lines combined

China has about 6000 miles of high speed rail and this amount should double by the end of 2015.

China is spending US$100 billion in 2014 on its high speed rail network.

China is building a 120 mph high speed rail to Laos which is to be completed by 2019

Starting from Kunming in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, the railway will travel south through neighboring Laos and then into Thailand.

Ultimately, it will extend all the way to Singapore, via Malaysia. Other branches of the network will reach into Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Constructing it will be a mammoth engineering task. It will require 154 bridges and 76 tunnels, as well as 31 train stations, just to get the line the 260 miles from Boten on the Laos-China border to Laos’ capital Vientiane. An estimated 20,000 Chinese workers will be needed to build it, with the completion date set for 2019.

Land-locked Laos will be transformed by the railway. A largely agricultural nation where the average annual income is a mere £720 and many people, like Mr Vue, live without running water or electricity, Laos lacks both industry and infrastructure.

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