In an article published on Sunday the Beijing Review writes about "one of the last few monopoly industries in China. According to the China Railway Corp. (CR), reforms of China's rail transport industry will begin with freight. The company says the aim of freight reform is to make the industry more market-oriented and efficient, in a bid to establish a "door-to-door" modern logistics network".
Reform of the sector is the first such reform launched by the CR, which was founded in March. Zhao Jian, a professor with the School of Economics and Management at Beijing Jiaotong University, thinks changes are significant to the company's move toward full market-oriented reform".
It scraps the previous system where clients had to go through a number of procedures at different counters to clear their goods, and now they only have to process them at a single counter.And the minimum freight requirement of 60 tons has been eliminated, a rule that slowed the transport of goods.
"Zhao says that before the reform measures, freight transport was little concerned with the needs of cargo owners. The changes now shift the industry toward a more market-oriented bent, one that saves on energy and better protects the environment.
Therefore advancing reform of railway freight transport is crucial to accelerate the development of the railway industry, and it is also an urgent need to raise the economic returns of the railway industry," Zhao said.
He thinks the newly established CR has made reforms a top priority. The groundbreaking reforms will allow for larger transport volume, low prices and all-weather services so as to transform the CR into a modern enterprise through market competition".
Source: Beijing Review
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