CONSTRUCTION on the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (ERL) will start next year, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng Yu-wah announced yesterday.

The Executive Council of the SAR passed a motion yesterday to finance the project, which is expected to be completed by 2014 or 2015, Cheng said.

The Hong Kong government will provide HK$39.5 billion (US$5.07 billion) for the construction of the 30-kilometer Hong Kong section of the ERL.

The ERL will run from a new terminus in West Kowloon, Hong Kong, to Shibi, Guangzhou, via Shenzhen’s Futian District and Longhua in Bao’an District. The entire journey is expected to take less than 50 minutes — half the time of the current train journey, with trains running at 200 kilometers per hour.

When completed, it will connect with the national express rail network with frequent trains from West Kowloon to Shenzhen’s Futian and Longhua, and Shibi in Guangzhou. Passengers traveling from Hong Kong can then take the Beijing-Guangzhou express line from Guangzhou to Beijing, or the Hangzhou-Fuzhou-Shenzhen line from Shenzhen to Shanghai.

“We expect there will be 10 trains per day and it will take only 10 hours from Hong Kong to Beijing via Guangzhou and eight hours to Shanghai via Shenzhen,” Cheng said.

The ERL’s Guangdong section is expected to be in service by 2010.

In March 2002, a joint expert group formed by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and the mainland authorities embarked on a feasibility study on the development of an express rail link connecting Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.(SD News)