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Taiwan's debt-ridden high-speed rail company has secured 12 billion US dollars in new funding as part of efforts to pay off earlier loans, an executive said Sunday. A 382 billion Taiwan dollar (12.0 billion US) syndicated loan, signed on Friday, will be used to pay off existing loans which Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp obtained at higher interest levels during the project's construction.
The fund - the biggest syndicated loan in Taiwan history - will save the company around two billion dollars per year, company vice president Ted Chia told AFP.
Billed as one the largest privately funded transport projects ever, Taiwan High Speed Rail has instead become more famous for its ability to amass enormous debt. Three years after the much-touted rail system went into operation, it has incurred 70.2 billion Taiwan dollars (2.1 billion US dollars) in losses, or roughly two thirds of its capitalisation. An abrupt slowdown in the Taiwan economy has meant that the 280,000 daily passengers projected by government reports in the 1980s and early 1990s have now shrunk to a mere 87,000 per day in reality.
The company did not specify the rates of the new loan, but local media put the rates at around 1.83 percent per annum. The 345-kilometre (207-mile) system links Taipei in the north with Kaohsiung in the south using Japanese bullet-train technology.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010

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