Addressing the 10th ASEAN-China Summit in Cebu, the Philippines, Wen said China proposes that a strategic plan on China-ASEAN transport cooperation in the next 10 to 15 years be formulated to facilitate coordinated development of regional transport, improve integrated transport networks, and facilitate communication and transport in the region.

China and 17 other countries, many of them members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, signed an inter-governmental pact last November to build a Pan-Asian railway network, which would include an 81,000-kilometer-long network that would link four key railways in different parts of Asia.

One of the railways is the China-ASEAN link with three separate lines linking Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos with China. The rail will go on to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, and will be 5,500 kilometers long in total.

With its expected completion by 2015, the rail link will play a key role in pushing forward regional economic cooperation and integration.

China has already started construction of the eastern line of the rail link from Kunming to the Vietnamese border and it is investing 50 billion yuan (US$6.25 billion) to build a total of three lines in Yunnan Province to link them with Laos and Myanmar besides Vietnam.

Leaders of China and the 10 ASEAN countries pledged to build the Singapore-Kunming Rail Link when they attended the China-ASEAN Commemorative Summit celebrating the 15th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue relations in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in October.

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