The central ministries, too, joined

The central ministries, too, joined in the competition. Among the most aggressive was the Ministry of Railways, which grabbed an estimated CNY 1.5 trillion of the CNY 4 trillion investment approved by the NDRC. The Medium-Long Term Plan for the National Railway Network, set in 2004, had called for the network to reach 100 000 km of rails by 2020, including 12 000 km of high-speed lines. The Plan’s centrepiece was the adoption of Chinese-made high-speed trains operating at or above 200 km/h. This was amended in 2008 to set targets of 120 000 km of total length (including 16 000 km of high-speed lines) and with train speeds raised to as much as 350 km/h (Liu et al., 2011).