2016 Theses Master's

The Implementation of Financing Strategies in Urban Rapid Transit Infrastructure: How Could Chinese Cities Do Better?

Ma, Yifei

Urban rapid transit infrastructure have been expanding at an exploding speed in Mainland China. Government subsidy used to be the sole fiscal support to the transit development for a long time. Now the government is facing enormous burden to support the expansion on its own. The major problems are the shortage of construction and revenue-expenditure gap in funding. Therefore, the municipalities are seeking to introduce foreign financing strategies to the transit funding to build a more profitable financing platform.

Hong Kong MTR has been a popular model among mainland cities for its “Rail + Property” model and efficient internal management. However, under current context, it is really difficult to completely copy the success of Hong Kong. Therefore, the implementation has shown several variations. Beijing Metro adds a parallel system to the existing one, which are under the operation of Public-Private Partnership with Hong Kong MTR Company. Wuhan, while paving the avenue for “Rail + Property”, employed Finance Lease to utilize the existing facilities to collect construction funding, which made time for property auction and development adjunct to and atop of the transit line.

In analyzing the implementation process of the two cases, the thesis found out the strategies of implementing financing strategies in Chinese mainland cities, and illustrated the context and the incentives for the variations. By reviewing the case of Wuhan and Beijing, the thesis analyzed how the two cities made localized adaptions, their contracts in the two implementations, and the key part that contributed to reaching the expected effects. In finding a working principal from these two cases, the thesis also analyzed the problems in implementation caused by the government role, the financing platform of metro company, and the mechanism of implementation.