THE metro should have been one of the hottest topic in the media of big Chinese cities in 2002, as about 20 new metro lines were planned in China. But all the metro building programmes are to be frozen, including Shanghai's Metro Line 8, according to a top official's meeting held last October.

　　The Xinkuai Bao Newspaper reported that the news was a head-on blow to all applicant cities, especially Hangzhou (capital of East China's Zhejiang Province), Shenyang (capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province) and Shanghai.

　　The three cities used to be quite hopeful about receiving approval from the central government. Chengdu in Southwest China, which had actively pledged to apply for a metro, held back knowing the government would have adopt much stricter standards on metro building just before the meeting.

　　After the metro programmes freeze, the State Council has carried out an overall investigationsintosall metro plans, concerned about their investment and equipment needs. Afterwards, a series of feasible and clear standards will be set for metro construction.

　　Profit potential

　　As one of the core members of the investigation team, Zhou Xiaoqin said the investigation and subsequent policies would tackle investment needs and profit potential during the metro's construction and operation.

　　Although the metro has a history of over 140 years, there was no a mature model for making profits by running the metro lines, said Zhou.

　　In mid-1990s, the construction of the Qingdao Metro and Chongqing Metro Line 1 were stopped halfway due to financial shortages. As for the Shenyang Metro, it was not even started due to financial shortages.

　　Insiders analyzed that the direct cause of the freeze on metro programmes was the that the central government was afraid that asgroupsof cities would be roused to precipitate action and the same failures would repeat due to sloppy approvals.

　　Officials are also afraid that the huge investment in the construction of metros will lead to economic pressure which won't be resolved in the short term.

　　According to the statistics of Zhejiang Province, the total financial income in Hangzhou, the capital city of the province, was about 25.7 billion yuan (US.1 billion) in 2002. But the planned investment in the metro construction amounts to 15.2 billion yuan. The financial pressure is obvious.

　　Statistics from the central government says that out of the total investment in domestic transport of 800 billion yuan (US.7 billion) during the 10th five-year plan, at least 200 billion yuan will be invested in metro construction.

　　Beijing has launched its metro expansion recently, but it has fallen short of funds by 60 billion yuan.

　　High levels government officials, including premier Zhu Rongji and Xiang Huaicheng, the financial minister, said China needed to control expenditures during construction projects, with the aim of cutting down on the financial deficit. (Star News)