Hongqiao railway station begins construction

Construction began on Sunday at Shanghai Hongqiao railway station , the terminal station on the Beijing-Shanghai express railway. The station is expected to become one of the Yangtze River Delta region's top transportation hubs. The Hongqiao station will cover an area of 240,000 square meters, with facilities for both high-speed and normal trains.

Hongqiao railway station in the future (File photo)

Plans call for service to begin before the opening of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. The station will serve nearly 78 million people annually by 2013, cutting in half the length of a train trip between Shanghai and Beijing to just five hours. The new facility will also improve links between trains and Shanghai's subway network and airports.

Slump hits CITIC´s profit rise

CITIC Securities Co, China's second-biggest brokerage by market value, said Sunday first-half profit growth slowed to 13.3 percent as the nation's stock market slumped about 48 percent.

A branch of CITIC Securities Co. Ltd is seen in this undated photo. CITIC Securities Co, China's second-biggest brokerage by market value, said Sunday first-half profit growth slowed to 13.3 percent as the nation's stock market slumped about 48 percent. [File photo]

CITIC's year-earlier net rose fivefold.

Net income rose to 4.8 billion yuan (US$704 million) in the six months ending June 30 from a year earlier, according to a statement from the Beijing-based securities company Sunday, citing unaudited figures in a mandatory profit warning. CITIC earned 4.2 billion yuan in the first half last year. The company's profit doubled in the first quarter this year, Bloomberg News reported.

The stock market decline is cutting earnings from commissions and proprietary trading after surging profits last year when the nation's stocks almost tripled in value. Investors traded shares in about 10 million stock accounts, or 8.5 percent of the nation's total, in the last week of the first half, compared with 19 percent in the first week.

CITIC's earnings per share declined 49 percent to 0.72 yuan, compared with 1.41 yuan a year earlier, after the company's total outstanding shares were diluted to about 6.6 billion as of the end of June from about 3 billion a year earlier.