China moots bullet train to Kolkata, via Bangladesh, Myanmar

The Chinese Consul General in Kolkata Ma Zhanwu said on Wednesday that his country was mooting a bullet train service between Kunming and Kolkata, passing through Myanmar and Bangladesh.

With joint efforts of India and China, a high-speed rail link could be established between the two cities, said Mr Zhanwu.

“We are looking forward to bullet trains from Kolkata to Kunming. The whole Asia will be connected,” said Zhanwu while addressing a conference on connectivity and trade relations between China and India.

“It will only take a few hours to reach Kolkata from Kunming if the rail link becomes a reality,” he asserted.

"If the project becomes a reality, it will take only two hours to complete 2,000-km journey, compared with flights that take almost two hours and 30 minutes," Ma said at a conference.

"Most talked about is the bullet train from Kunming to Kolkata and from Kolkata to Kunming. Maybe in the coming decade, it will just take two hours from Kolkata via Dhaka and Myanmar to Kunming," he said.

He said the service will give a thrust to trade and commerce in the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor.

Ma said the project figured in the Greater Mekong Subregion meet in Kunming in 2015.

The envoy said that Chinese policies like the Belt and Road Initiative is mainly designed for extensive discussion and shared benefits with neighbouring countries like India and "not to conquer them".