(Yicai) Aug. 22 -- China and Vietnam are joining forces to build three standard-gauge high-speed railways as trade between the two countries grows rapidly and to create a high-speed railway network that will link China with the whole of Southeast Asia.

Two major railway lines that run from the China-Vietnam border to central Vietnamese cities, will be converted to the standard width of 1.43 meters from the current width of one meter, the two countries said on Aug. 20. China will also help Vietnam to construct a new standard-gauge railway line.

These routes are part of the Southeast Asian section of the cargo railway network the Trans-Asian Railway that connect Kunming in China’s southwestern Yunnan province to Singapore. The east line stretches from Vietnam to Cambodia, the central line passes through Laos, Thailand and Malaysia, and the west line goes through Myanmar and Thailand.

China and Vietnam have had railroad connections for over a century, but their tracks have different widths. Now that Vietnam has put the construction of standard-gauge railways on the agenda, it will greatly improve rail freight transport between the two countries.

Vietnam is promoting the building of high-speed railways between itself and China because it believes in China’s high-speed railway technologies, said Zhou Shixin, director of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies' Southeast Asian center.

Trade between China and Vietnam is growing rapidly. Bilateral trade surged more than 20 percent in the first seven months from a year earlier to USD145 billion. China has been Vietnam’s largest trade partner for many years, and Vietnam is China’s biggest trade partner among the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations.

More people are also traveling between the two nations. Vietnam welcomed 357,000 tourists from China in May, making China its biggest source of tourists, according to statistics from Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.

Editor: Kim Taylor