On the evening of Sunday 15 November, the first meeting of the Steering Committee for the World Congress on High Speed was held at the headquarters of the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR). The meeting was attended by the UIC Director General, Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, accompanied by Ignacio Barrón and Michel Leboeuf (Chairman of the High Speed Plenary Committee), who met the head of the Ministry and the Chinese Academy of Railway Sciences (CARS), which will be organizing the event.

The main objective of the meeting was to agree on the basic conditions for the organisation of the 7th World Congress on High Speed Rail (“UIC-HighSpeed”), to be held in Beijing on 7, 8 and 9 December 2010.

During the meeting the conclusions of the first meeting of the Scientific Committee, held at the last High Speed Plenary Committee, were given.
A visit to the South Station, followed by a trip to Tianjing, as well as a visit to the China National Convention Center (CNCC), the venue of the Congress, was also organized on Monday 16 November.

“UIC HIGHSPEED” is a very big event, bringing together the most important actors in the world of high speed rail: railway companies, industry, authorities, planners, consultants, researchers, etc. The 7th edition will also give the opportunity to discover the most important high speed system development in the world (in 2009, 2 300 kilometers of new high speed line will start the operation and at the present moment, almost 800 high speed trains sets are being manufactured (which represents more than today’s entire European fleet). Chinese Railways operates the fastest train services in the world, with a maximum speed of 350 km/hr, between Beijing and Tianjin.