In the southern province of Yunnan, the NRDC has given the go-ahead to a 504km electrified line which will link Yuxi near Kunming with Pu'er, Xishuangbanna, and Mohan on the border with Laos.

The total cost of the project is Yuan 44.51bn ($US 7.27bn), including Yuan 1.37bn for rolling stock, and the Asian Development Bank is expected to finance construction with a $US 350m loan, which will be repaid by China Railway Corporation (CRC).

In western Yunnan, a 330km line will be built linking Dali on the southern shore of Erhai Lake with the Myanmar border at Ruili. The line will be electrified and designed for operation at up to 140km/h. The total budget for the project will be Yuan 25.73bn, including Yuan 330m for rolling stock.

CRC will fund 85% of the project through its annual capital budget and other sources, with the remaining 15% coming from the Yunnan government. Construction is expected to take seven years to complete.

The NDRC has also approved a Yuan 25.64bn project to increase freight capacity between coal mines around Bayan Nur in Inner Mongolia and the port of Jinzhou in the eastern province of Liaoning, a distance of around 600km. The four-year project will increase freight capacity on the route to around 150 million tonnes.