GOVERNMENT officials in Taiwan met representatives of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp and banking representatives on July 14 in Taipei to seek a formula to rescue the project for a 345 km high speed line from Taipei to Kaohsiung (RG 7.99 p426). The outcome was a promise from Finance Minister Paul Chiu that a syndicated loan worth NT$280bn would be signed by the end of this month, so keeping the scheme more or less on course. Meanwhile the government succeeded in completing by a June 30 deadline the last six of 28 project-related ’tasks’ related to construction, clearing another obstacle.
THSRC will now concentrate on evaluating the bids it received on June 15 for rolling stock and control systems. One was from the EuroTrain consortium of Siemens and Alstom, the other from the Taiwan Shinkansen Alliance, which consists of Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Toshiba. TSA is apparently backed by the Japanese government offering credits worth up to NT$70bn. THSRC is due to announce its choice next month.
This all looks remarkably like a re-run of the Seoul - Pusan high speed line project during the late 1980s. So too does the battle for a partner to work with Chinese Railways on the Beijing - Shanghai high speed line. As in Korea, the deal looks increasingly likely to hinge on the amount of technology transfer that the bidders are willing to concede.
