China lending Russia $6.2 billion for Russia’s Moscow-Kazan high speed rail project

China has agreed to provide a 400 billion-ruble ($ 6.2 billion) loan for Russia’s Moscow-Kazan High-Speed ​​Rail Project, the Russian Railways company said Friday.

In late March, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich attended the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), where he invited Chinese business to take part in the implementation of high-speed rail projects in Russia, including the Moscow-Kazan railway and a high- speed railway between Samara and Tolyatti.

The project is initial stage of a high speed rail line connecting Moscow and Beijing and later one of lines connecting China to Europe.

China is discussions with India on several High Speed rail projects

India has tied up with Japan for its first high-speed train to run on a 505-km track between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. China is keen to work on other proposed routes. It is carrying out feasibility studies for high-speed lines on the 2,200-km Chennai-New Delhi route and the 1,200-km long New Delhi-Mumbai corridor.

The proposed Chennai-New Delhi corridor could be the second-largest in the world, after the 2,298 km-long Beijing-Guangzhou line, which was launched three years ago.

Comparing the pricing of tickets of various modes of transport, the Chinese railway chief said the fare for a regular passenger train is 10 cents per kilometer, while second class on HSR costs 48 cents per kilometer and first class costs 80 cents. An air ticket, on average, came to about 1 RMB (100 china cents) per km. This was after airlines had been forced to lower their rates since they were losing out to High Speed Rail.