(Yicai) Feb. 27 -- The State Council, China’s cabinet, has rejected the applications of multiple cities, including Harbin in northeastern Heilongjiang province, to build new subway lines to prevent local government debt risks.

The application for the second construction phase of the Harbin underground railway system, which was proposed in 2017, has been rejected and has not been reviewed again as the city failed to meet the debt ratio requirements, Yicai learned.

In 2018, the State Council asked cities applying to build subway systems to have an annual budget revenue of over CNY15 billion (USD2.1 billion), a gross domestic product of more than CNY150 billion (USD20.8 billion), and over 1.5 million urban permanent residents. The cabinet also set requirements in terms of rail transit operating capacity and passenger ridership.

The third phase of Kunming’s subway construction project, which was submitted to the National Development and Reform Commission last April, has not yet been reviewed and will probably not be reviewed this year either, the transportation bureau of the capital city of southwestern Yunnan province said.

The construction of the metro lines in Baotou, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which cost CNY30 billion of government debts at the time of application in 2017, was halted. On Dec. 31, the Baotou municipal government and bureau of housing and urban-rural development said the reason was the fact that the city was not eligible to apply for the project when it applied.

Fifty-five Chinese cities have been operating 306 subway lines with a total mileage of over 10,165 kilometers as of the end of last year, with nearly 582 kilometers opened last year alone. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, they were added 1,240 km, 1,168 km, and 847 km of subway lines, respectively.

Editor: Futura Costaglione