Bombardier wins high-speed train contract in China

BEIJING – A joint venture involving Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. has won a huge contract for high-speed train sets from China’s Ministry of Railways.

The deal, announced Monday, is worth $4 billion U.S., with Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd.’s share estimated to be $2 billion U.S..

Bombardier China president Jianwei Zhang called the deal with China’s government "one of the biggest contracts in the world in the field of railway transportation equipment."

Using Bombardier’s Zefiro technology that boasts speeds of 380 km/h, the Bombardier joint-venture company will supply 80 "very high-speed" train sets – a total of 1,120 cars – over a two-year period beginning in 2012.

"We are very pleased to be delivering leading-edge very high speed rail technology through Chinese expertise and resources," Pierre Beaudoin, president and CEO of Bombardier Inc., said in a statement. "This illustrates the strategic importance of delivering the most advanced rail technology for China from within China."

The train sets – 20 of them will include eight cars, 60 will include 16 cars – will be used across China’s rail system, which, like everything else in China, is growing at red hot speed. China currently has more than 6,000 km of high-speed rail lines on the drawing board or in the works.

Zhang said: "China has a clear vision of the critical role high-speed rail must play in a sustainable transportation system and is making the strategic investments necessary to ensure that vision is realized."

Bombardier has a long history of doing business in China.

Bombardier Sifang, which was formed in 1998 when Bombardier entered into a joint venture with China’s CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Ltd., is currently busy with two other high-speed train contracts for China’s rail system. It is working on a 16-car set it calls "the world’s fastest sleeper trains," capable of going up to 250 km/h while you snooze. As well, it is building another 20 ordinary passenger trains that will go at the same speed.

To date, Bombardier ventures have delivered over 1,000 passenger cars to the Chinese rail system.

In the past decade, Beijing has contracted Bombardier to supply everything from locomotives and subway cars to an advanced high-speed signalling system, but it’s highest profile projects in China to date were probably the mainland’s first fully automated people mover that it installed in the capital’s futuristic new airport in advance of the 2008 Olympics and the high altitude rail cars it designed in 2006 for the "Roof of the World" railway to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

Bombardier is involved in two other joint rail ventures in China besides Bombardier Sifang and also has five wholly foreign-owned enterprises. It employs more than 3,000 people across the country.