(Yicai Global) Jan. 5 -- Some 5.4 percent of China's railway assets were securitized last year, a big increase from the 1.3 percent of the year before, thanks to the market-oriented reform of China State Railway Group last year.

China Railway disclosed the information at a meeting in Beijing yesterday. The group will value operating high-quality assets as equity more and promote listings and share reform of more of its rail firms this year. China State Railway Group will advance securitization of its high-quality assets, it said in its retrospective working program for the 13th Five-Year plan that ran from 2016 to 2020. 

The group has long suffered a low return on equity, with the indicator sometimes even below 1 percent. One reason for this is debt spending. Promoting market-oriented reform and securitizing assets are ways to address this issue.

China Railway's operating income was CNY1.13 trillion (USD175 billion) last year, it told the meeting, but without revealing its profitability or other financial details.

The group, a wholly state-owned enterprise under the direct management of the central government that restructured from the former China Railway Corp last year, had 146,300 kilometers of tracks in operation across China by year’s end.

The group will propel the initial public offerings of its China Railway Special Cargo Logistics and Gemac Engineering Machinery units this year, with the listing review of the two basically complete. It will also study the share reform scheme of China Railway Design Corp for an IPO. 

Railways nationwide finished CNY781.9 billion (USD121 billion) worth of fixed-asset investments last year, below the CNY800 billion mark for the first time since 2014, according to the working report China Railway published yesterday. Last year's investments were greatly affected by the pandemic, with only CNY79.9 billion finished in the first quarter, the least in six years, a China Railway employee who requested anonymity told Yicai Global.

China broke ground on 20 new railway projects last year with an operational mileage of 4,933 km, more than the 4,000 km target set at 2020's start. This year will add about 3,700 km more, per plans. The count of passengers transported is expected to rise 43.7 percent on the year to 3.1 billion, with the weight of goods delivered up 3.4 percent to 3.7 billion tons. 

Editors: Dou Shicong, Ben Armour, Xiao Yi