[영문] China denies exporting stolen railway technologies

By Park Sae-jin Posted : January 11, 2009, 13:02 Updated : January 11, 2009, 13:02

   
 
Workers perform cleaning works on a Chinese-made high-speed train at a railway station in Beijing, China

China's Railway Ministry denied reported accusations Saturday that foreigners are being squeezed out of the Chinese railway market and that local companies are exporting trains using Western technologies.

In a statement, ministry spokesman Wang Yongping defended the Chinese railway industry's record for innovation and said foreign companies would continue to have access to the China market.

The comments were the ministry's first since the Financial Times on January 2 quoted Philippe Mellier, chief executive of Paris-based train maker Alstom Transport, as saying that China was closing off its domestic market and that Chinese companies were exporting trains that used foreign technologies. The report suggested that such exports could be in violation of licensing agreements.

"We believe that if the senior official of Alstom really made those accusations against China then that is extremely irresponsible behavior," Wang said in the statement carried on the government's Web site.

A government-backed spending spree to expand and upgrade China's vast railway network has attracted foreign companies. Some 330 billion yuan ($48.35 billion) was spent on railway construction in 2008 and nearly twice that amount has been earmarked for 2009, according to state media.

In recent years, Alstom, Bombardier Inc. of Canada and Germany's Siemens have won contracts to sell and develop high-speed rail cars and technologies in China.

Wang, the spokesman, said foreign and Chinese cooperation had benefited both sides, with foreign firms making money and Chinese companies learning how to develop trains with average speeds of 180 miles per hour (300 kilometers per hour). But Wang said China's new generation of high-speed trains, which travel at 210 miles per hour (350 kilometers per hour) were completely homegrown.

"This is the innovative results of our wholly owned intellectual property and there's no stealing of Western technology," Wang said.

In the Financial Times, Alstom's Mellier was quoted as saying that Chinese companies were selling freight locomotives in foreign markets that were based on transferred technology. The newspaper suggested that the sales of such products may violate agreements that would prohibit China from selling the technologies abroad.
(AP)

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