Summary：China’s Ministry of Railways (MOR) announced a new round of bidding for passenger trains on Monday, a procurement that could be worth 3 billion yuan.

China’s Ministry of Railways (MOR) announced a new round of bidding for passenger trains on Monday, a procurement that could be worth 3 billion yuan.

In order to reach 2012's budget for fixed-asset investment, China Railway Construction Corporation announced of purchase of 1,200 ordinary passenger carriages for a unit price of approximately 2.5 million yuan. These carriages (named DC600V, the most widely used train in China) are to be procured through open tender.

As the ministry has sought bids for another 2,500 passenger carriages in May, the number of passenger trains reached 3,700 this year, which were flat from the year before.

Just last month, the MOR completed a 6.1 billion yuan bid for 15,000 rail wagons.

China has only two rail equipment makers, China CNR Corporation Limited (601299.SH) and China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited (CSR) (1766.HK, 601766.SH). “As the different division, CSR has an advantage in this tender,” a source from the ministry said.

Last month, Beijing called for increasing efforts to reach the 500 billion yuan ($79.4 billion) railway investment target of this year, as part of its latest moves to boost the slowing economy.

In the first three quarters, the MOR’s fixed-asset investment decreased 13 percent year-on-year to 344.16 billion yuan, which means it has to catch up with the rest of the 31 percent of the annual target in the fourth quarter