YANGON – The Myanmar railway authorities are making efforts to boost the railway sector of the country with loans from China and India, a local media reported Wednesday.
For the coming fiscal year 2012-13 starting April, $155 million of loans obtained from the two neighbors will be used in purchasing new goods wagon, locomotives and passenger coaches from these countries to replace the outdated ones, said the Popular News.
Better services will be offered along with the increase of train fare, a railway official was quoted as saying.
Besides China and India, Myanmar has also been purchasing locomotives from France, Germany and Japan.According to an earlier report, the state-run Myanmar Railway was operating 27 locomotive repairing factories, 52 passenger coach maintaining factories, and the Myit Nge passenger coach and goods wagon factory.With about 130,000 passengers depending on rail transport in Yangon daily, the city circular trains are running about 200 rounds a day.
Of the various types of trains running in Myanmar, there are 1, 252 passenger coaches, of which four-decade-old ones accounted for 32 percent. Of the 3,311 goods wagons, 40-year-old ones took 56 percent and out of 386 locomotives, 30-year-old ones represented 47 percent.According to statistics, the length of Myanmar’s railroad has reached 5,726 kilometers (km) with 2,844 km more under construction.
Meanwhile, 475 km more railways are set to be implemented in the future, aimed at narrowing the development gap between the urban and rural areas and promoting socio-economic development.Myanmar has steadily expanded its railway network in the last two decades, from 3,161 km in 1988 to 5,403 km in 2010.
