China to spend $500B to expand rail system by 2020

BEIJING — China plans to spend $503 billion to expand its railway system by 2020 as it turns to investments in infrastructure to bolster growth and improve connectivity across the country, Bloomberg News reported.

The high-speed rail network will span more than 18,650 miles under the proposal, which is about 6.5 times the length of a road trip between New York and Los Angeles, and will cover 80% of major cities in China, the report said.

At the end of 2015, China had 75,000 miles of railway lines, including 19,000 kilometers of high-speed tracks, while the U.S. had 142,000 miles of rail lines as of 2014, Bloomberg News reported. For the full story, click here.