China Railway

 
The China State Railway Group Co (China Railway) reported improved financial results for the first half of the year, with revenue of 512.769 billion yuan ($79 billion), an increase of 108.8 billion yuan compared to the first half of last year.

But the company still made a loss of 50.737 billion yuan in the first half, although the loss has narrowed from the same period last year, when the net loss reached 95.5 billion yuan.

Data released by the group showed there were 1.365 billion passenger trips in the first half of the year, an increase of 67 percent year-on-year. However, the figure is still well below the passenger flow of more than 1.7 billion in the first half of 2019.

In May this year, the number of railway passenger trips reached 95.5 percent of the same period in 2019, and the single-day passenger flow exceeded 18 million for the first time, setting a record high.

From January to June, the national railway investment in fixed assets was 298.9 billion yuan, and 1,138 kilometers of new lines were put into operation, including 505 kilometers of high-speed railways. 

The Lhasa-Nyingchi railway in Tibet Autonomous Region started operation on June 25, with China's most advanced Fuxing bullet train running on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau for the first time.

Freight continued its growth trend. In the first half of the year, the group sent 1.845 billion tons of cargo, an increase of 8.9 percent year-on-year, with the average daily load up 10.2 percent. 

The Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway Co, which is part of China Railway, also released a semi-annual report on Monday. With the recovery of passenger flow, its revenue and profits have increased significantly. In the first half of the year, its operating income reached 15.098 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50.3 percent.