Work on at least two new subway lines will start in Beijing this year, a senior transport official said on Tuesday.

The construction of between two and four new lines will start before the end of the year, and work will continue on six others that were launched last year, Yang Bin, chairman of the Beijing metro construction administration corporation, said.

"We will speed up the development of the subway network," he said.

Construction of the Yizhuang Line - which runs from Songjiazhuang station at the southern end of Line 5, to Yizhuang station in the southeast of Beijing - will start on September 21, the day after the end of the Paralympic Games, he said.

Trial operations on the 23km line are scheduled for 2012, he said.

Xu Xiaoyuan, an official with the Beijing municipal commission of development and reform, said that as well as providing more public transport options for residents, the new lines will encourage industrial firms to relocate from the city's downtown to suburban areas.

Since the start of this year, the municipal government has allocated 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) a year toward the cost of the network's development, he said.

"The government will bear about 40 percent of the cost to build the metro, with the rest coming from bank loans," Xu said.

By 2015, the Beijing metro network will comprise 19 lines stretching 561km - London has 415km, New York has 371km - and handle 9 million passengers per day, he said.

"An average of one new metro line will be put into operation every year over the coming years," he said.

Three lines - Line 10, the Olympic Line and the Airport Express - opened this year, ahead of the Beijing Games, he said.

Ma Guoxin from the Chinese Academy of Engineering said the Beijing metro is one of the great legacies of the 2008 Olympic Games and is of "strategic importance" to the capital.

However, improvements are still needed, such as the provision of more space for small businesses, he said.

For example, there are very few newspaper stands or convenience stores underground, he said. Also, more elevators are required on some of the older lines, he said.

Beijing's first subway line opened on October 1, the National Day in 1969.

(China Daily August 27, 2008)