Shanghai and neighboring Zhejiang Province are considering a proposal for a magnetic levitation train to link the two areas, according to Wednesday's Eastday.com.

At a forum on boosting economic cooperation within the Yangtze River Delta held last Friday in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang, experts said they had begun research on the proposal, which calls for a 170-kilometer maglev line between Hangzhou and Shanghai's Pudong International Airport.

The line would cut transportation time between the two key delta cities to only 26 minutes.

On Monday in Beijing, Xu Kuangdi, dean of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and former mayor of Shanghai, said that German-developed maglev technology is proposed for the line. It is less expensive than Japanese technology, which uses superconductor materials.

The German technology was employed to build Shanghai's existing maglev line, the first in the world to be used commercially.

Also on Monday, Xu confirmed that the Beijing-Shanghai maglev project has been canceled because of its high cost and high risk.

Since 2001, Shanghai Municipality and Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces have jointly held annual forums to promote closer cooperation. The three areas have made advances in resource sharing, interprovincial tourism, regional environmental improvement and human resources.

(Shanghai Daily December 2, 2004)