An international consortium, including Canada’s Bombardier along with South Korean
and Singaporean construction companies, has been selected to build a $1.1 billion, 15-mile
light rail line to connect the nation’s leading port city of Pusan with its suburb of
Kimhae. The overhead line with 18 stations is supposed to be ready in 2005. The line will
be built as a build-operate-transfer project, with the government sharing the risk with
the private sector consortium.
In the first year of operation, daily ridership totals are projected in the range of
220,000, and annual receipts are expected to top $1 billion. Construction on the line is
expected to start next year.
Closer to home, Mexico’s President-elect Vincente Fox, who takes office Dec. 1,
has gone on record to support a billion-dollar light rail project to be funded by Siemens,
Canadian pension funds, and a Japanese securities firm.
The light rail line would serve about 2.5 million people in the light industry region
around the city of Leon, which has a population of 700,000, in the Mexican state of
Guanajuato, the home of President-elect Fox. According to press reports, the privately
funded system will take about six years to build.
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