The UITP Shenzhen liaison office will be responsible for membership relations and development, the integration of Chinese public transport knowledge with the international public transport community, and the development of UITP’s activities in relation to local needs and expectations.
Chinese Rail Sector
China has benefited from robust economic development in recent years. Although this has slowed lately, the annual GDP for the country continues to grow above 6% over the last half decade. This economic growth has engendered rapid urbanisation and the creation of Chinese mega cities.
China now boast 40 cities with a population of more than a million inhabitants, and it’s five largest cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chongqing) each have more than ten million inhabitants. Current predictions estimate that by 2030, 60% of the Chinese population will live in cities.
Therefore, China’s robust economic growth has brought with it challenges relating to mobility. However, good efforts are being made to address these issues, with more than 20 cities in China benefitting from metros. A further 30,000km of metro infrastructure is in development.
Ridership on the metros is also growing: four of the world’s busiest metro networks are in Beijing, Shanghai. Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Beijing alone saw an increase of 39% in ridership between 2012 and 2014.
UITP in China
The UITP Shenzhen liaison office will enable UITP to provide its services to the sustainable mobility sector, connecting organisations and groups, and promote public transport as an environmentally sustainable mode of transport, as well as a method to improve quality of life for citizens.
UITP’s main office is located in Brussels, and it has various regional and liaison offices around the world. Its most recent additions are Astana (Kazakhstan), New York (USA) and Casablanca (Morocco).
