BEIJING, Feb. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- China's railway transportation income has reached 148.34 billion yuan (19.94 billion US dollars) in 2003, an increase of 3.2 billion yuan over the previous year.

    The profit of the railway transportation in 2003 is expected toreach 500 million yuan, said Chinese Railways Minister Liu Zhijun here Sunday on a working conference.

    He said that in 2003, the railway freight increased by a big margin and realized a total volume of 2.2 billion tons, up 7.9 percent over the previous year. The railway freight income totaled78.43 billion yuan, up 6.9 percent over the year 2002.

    Liu said the railways witnessed a total number of 970 million passengers in 2003, 940 million of whom are transported by national railways. The figure is down 80 million compared with theprevious year.

    In 2003, the railway tickets income totaled 47.66 billion yuan,down 4.69 billion yuan compared with the expected figure and an decrease of 2.01 billion yuan over the previous year, he said.

    Liu said that Chinese Railways Ministry has set targets of railway transportation for 2004, which is to transport 1.08 billion passengers, 1.04 billion of which are transported by national railways; to realize a volume of railway freight of 2.29 billion tons; and to have a total transportation income of 162.8 billion, with profits of 2.5 billion yuan.

    He said relevant railways departments will make efforts to upgrade railway services, strictly control the expenditure, and adjust the layout of transportation productivity, so as to realizethese targets. Enditem