The official Xinhua News Agency said the figure of 600 billion yuan (S$126 billion) for railway infrastructure projects was announced at a national railway meeting. The country spent US$48.35 billion on railway construction in 2008, it said.

The spending is part of a $586 billion stimulus package announced by the government in November.

Xinhua did not say how much of the spending was new money and how much was previously budgeted.

It quoted Railway Minister Liu Zhijun as saying 3,200 miles (5,148 kilometers) of new lines would be built in 2009.

Five high-speed passenger lines will also go into operation next year, Liu said. Most of the lines are in southern China.

Mr Liu said 70 projects would be started in 2009 as part of a goal of easing a rail transport strain by 2012.

'There could be a historic change in the country's railway transport by 2012. The bottleneck restraints both in passenger and cargo transportation could be removed,' Mr Liu was quoted as saying.

Total railway lines could reach 68,000 miles (110,000 kilometres) in 2012, up from 48,500 miles (78,000 kilometres) at the end of 2007.

Xinhua said about 1.46 billion people travelled by rail in 2008, up 10.9 per cent from the previous year. About 3.3 billion tons of cargo was delivered by rail in 2008, up 4.9 per cent from 2007, it said. -- AP