The Funding system for Shanghai Metro And The Practical Experiences of Utilizing Foreign Funds

Metro, as a kind of city rail transit, is a modem city passenger transit system with mass transportation and independent special rails. It has become a backbone of the traffic in the metropolis and an important modern symbol of a city. A modem traffic system is indispensable for Shanghai to be an international metropolis of finance, trade and economy. At present, Shanghai metro line No. 1 and its extension have been put into operation, metro line NO. 2 will be put into trial operation by the end of 1999, the Pearl Line, an elevated rail transit system is under construction and other lines will be constructed later according to the plan. But the funding of the city rail transit construction (both metro and light rail) is a big difficult problem to the infrastructure construction of the metropolises either at home or abroad, which is also a problem to restrict the development of the city rail transit of Shanghai. We have learned from the internal and external experiences of the rail transit construction that it is an important means to deal with the funds of the city rail transit construction to actively utilize foreign funds. It makes up the shortage of the internal funds on the one hand, the external advanced science and technology and the management experiences can be introduced on the other hand. In order to discuss and study conveniently with you together the new problems appearing in the metro construction and to open up a new train of thought, this article will give out a certain analysis and description to the funding method in the metro construction of Shanghai and the characteristics of utilizing foreign funds in the rail transit construction as well as the problems which we are faced with.