XIAN | Projects & Construction

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Elevated railway to run through ancient Chinese capital


Photo source : http://www.photofans.cn/article/show...rticleid=83501

XI'AN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Visitors to Xi'an, an ancient city with numerous historical sites in northwestern China, will soon be able to appreciate the city's heritage as they travel by train six to 10 meters above ground.

Construction of the 9.3-km rail is expected to be completed by April, local authorities said.

The trains on the railway line will pass several of the northwestern city's most famous scenic spots, including the Grand Wild Goose Pagoda, which is a 1,360-year-old Buddhist pagoda, the Tang Paradise, a large royal-garden-like theme park, as well as a lake park and a Tang city wall relics park.

Construction of the 11-stop railway line started in April last year.

Xi'an, one of the oldest cities in China and capital of Shaanxi province, is home to the world-famous Terracotta Army. In ancient times it was called Chang'an, and was the eastern terminal of the Silk Route.

The city opened its first metro line in September 2011 and plans to complete six more lines by 2018 -- part of its ambitious plan to build itself into a metropolis in the country's relatively undeveloped western region.

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Ancient Silk Road continues to wait for World Heritage status

BEIJING, July 21, 2011 (Xinhua) -- A timetable for the submittal of an application to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for adding historical sites along China's 2,000-year-old Silk Road to the organization's World Heritage List has been postponed numerous times, with the project having been in the works for over five years.

"Our plan to submit the final application in 2012 has fallen through, as several obstacles have caused our work to progress slowly," said Tang Wei, director of the Division for World Heritage of China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The newest timetable, created during the second meeting of the Silk Road joint application project's coordination committee in Turkmenistan, states that the application should be submitted on Feb. 1, 2013.

However, Chinese officials are not optimistic about the new schedule.

"Every meeting concludes with the creation of a new schedule, but none of them have been fulfilled," said Tang.

China and several central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, launched an effort to have the road listed back in 2006.

The six countries signed an agreement in Paris in October 2007 that determined the application plan and process. It also stated that historical sites along the Silk Road in China and central Asia would be first in line to apply for the World Heritage List.

"However, the central Asian countries lack expertise, funds and knowledge of cultural heritage protection and management. We still have a long way to go in meeting the list's international requirements," said Tang.

Jing Feng, chief of the Asia and Pacific section of the UNESCO World Heritage Center, said that such a large-scale multinational joint application is unprecedented.

"The joint world heritage application for the Silk Road provides a good opportunity for international and regional cooperation. However, the difficulties the project is facing are not small," said Jing.

"The Silk Road project involves a wide range of countries, and the situations in different countries are very complicated," Jing said.

"The UNESCO World Heritage Center can only help promote the application. The actual application work has to be accomplished by the applying countries, depending on inter-governmental coordination," said Jing.

Jing added that several of the central Asian countries involved have unstable political situations. These are all obstacles delaying the application process, he said.

Starting from the ancient city of Chang'an, now known as Xian, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the ancient Silk Road extends to the Mediterranean region in the west and the Indian subcontinent in the south. The total length of the Silk Road is over 10,000 km, with 4,000 km located within China.

As the longest and most culturally influential trade route in the world, the Silk Road played an important role in bridging the East and West and creating opportunities for prosperity and wealth for the denizens of both regions.

China has added 48 historical sites along the Silk Road, located in the provinces and autonomous regions of Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang, to the application waiting list. The six provinces and autonomous regions have compiled application documents and implemented a series of cultural heritage and environmental protection projects at the selected sites.

China's central government spends 80 million yuan (about 12.38 million U.S. dollars) every year to protect heritage sites along the Silk Road in its western Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The government of Xian has invested 12.2 billion yuan toward a protection project for the Daming Palace, which is also on the application list.

Enthusiasm for the application has been spreading. The nations of Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Iran have also joined the project. However, this has also complicated the application process, as Japan, Iran and India have been aiming to take a leading role in the process.

"Although the number of countries participating in the project has increased to 12, we have always believed that China and the five central Asian countries are the core members," Jing said.

"What I worry about is that if the joint application for China and the central Asian countries continues to be postponed, other countries might apply ahead of us," said Tang.

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Qujiang Area Constructions

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GE opens innovation center in NW China
Updated: 2012-07-19 09:22
Xinhua

XI'AN -- General Electric Co opened on Wednesday a China Innovation Center in Xi'an, capital of northwestern Shaanxi province, to serve as a regional innovation hub, the company said in a statement.

The innovation center, CIC Xi'an, is designed to provide an open platform for GE to jointly create products and solutions with its regional customers in lighting, aviation and energy sectors, according to the statement.

"The customer innovation centers we have built in China's hinterland are in line with the country's ongoing shift in growth pattern," said Mark Hutchinson, president and CEO of GE Greater China.

"These facilities...will play an instrumental role in building out much-needed local innovation capabilities in the critical industries that are key to the region's long-term growth," Hutchinson said.

GE has spent more than $60 million on the building of the Xi'an center, which is part of $2 billion investment commitment GE made in late 2010 to bolster the company's innovation activities and build technology partnerships in China over a three-year period.

In May, GE inaugurated another China Innovation Center in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan province, and the company said more similar facilities are planned in other inland Chinese cities.

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Platelayers work at a subway car depot of subway Line 1 in Xi'an City, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Aug. 28, 2012. The rail laying of subway Line 1 is expected to be completed on Wednesday, and the 25.36-kilometer-long subway will be put into service in September of next year. (Xinhua/Hao Tongqian)



A worker cleans up rails at a construction site of subway Line 1 in Xi'an City, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Aug. 28, 2012. The rail laying of subway Line 1 is expected to be completed on Wednesday, and the 25.36-kilometer-long subway will be put into service in September of next year. (Xinhua/Hao Tongqian)



Platelayers work at a construction site of subway Line 1 in Xi'an City, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Aug. 28, 2012. The rail laying of subway Line 1 is expected to be completed on Wednesday, and the 25.36-kilometer-long subway will be put into service in September of next year. (Xinhua/Hao Tongqian)



Platelayers work at a construction site of subway Line 1 in Xi'an City, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Aug. 28, 2012. The rail laying of subway Line 1 is expected to be completed on Wednesday, and the 25.36-kilometer-long subway will be put into service in September of next year. (Xinhua/Hao Tongqian)



Platelayers work at a construction site of subway Line 1 in Xi'an City, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Aug. 28, 2012. The rail laying of subway Line 1 is expected to be completed on Wednesday, and the 25.36-kilometer-long subway will be put into service in September of next year. (Xinhua/Hao Tongqian)

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Samsung begins construction of chip plant in NW China

XI'AN, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest maker of memory chips, started construction on its semiconductor plant Wednesday in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Total investment on the first phase of the project, located in Xi'an Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, will reach 7 billion U.S. dollars, making the project Samsung's single largest overseas investment for a chip-making plant, the company said in a statement.

The first phase of the project is expected to be completed by next year, with 100,000 10-nano-level NAND flash memory chips to be produced monthly from 2014, said the company.

Industry insiders said Samsung's move is aimed at diversifying its production lines and cutting its production costs, as it faces fierce competition from other electronic giants in the market.

Meanwhile, strong demand for NAND flash memory chips in the Chinese market is another reason for Samsung to invest heavily in China.

According to statistics from Gartner, the world's leading information technology research and advisory firm, China accounted for about half of the world's NAND flash memory chips sales last year, with sales reaching 29 billion U.S. dollars.

China's market share is estimated to further rise to 55 percent by the year of 2015, Gartner said in a report.

The Xi'an municipal government said Samsung's project will boost its economy and increase employment.

The project is expected to generate annual sales revenue of 66 billion yuan (about 10.4 billion U.S. dollars) and bring about 10,000 jobs upon the completion of the first-phase project, according to the company.

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wonderful !

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Airport Construction
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