Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang urged the country's railway departments to make efforts to promote safe railway transport and build quality railway projects to better serve socio-economic development.

Continuous efforts should be made to relieve railway transport capacity shortage and further expand the country's railways network, Zhang told a national railway conference.

"Although shortage of the country's passenger and goods transportation by railways has been eased to some extent, railways are still a bottleneck restricting economic development," Zhang said.

He stressed railway technology innovation, railway project quality and improvement of services for the convenience of passengers.

Zhang also urged railway departments make full preparations to cope with traffic peak during the upcoming holiday, when millions of people rush back home for the Spring Festival, China's Lunar New Year, which falls on February 14.

In 2009, China's railways saw a passenger flow of 1.52 billion and transported 3.32 billion tonnes of freight, both breaking records. The country's railways are expected to see a record of 1.64 billion passenger trips in 2010, up 7.6 percent from last year.

(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2010)