Biggest deal for China's bullet trains

China's bullet train is set to go abroad for the first time as the country plans to export 228 bullet trains to Malaysia to develop intercity transportation for Kuala Lumpur, official media said.

So far, this is the biggest deal signed for the Chinese domestically-made bullet train, government-run People's Daily quoted China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited as saying.

It is specially coordinated according to the track gauge standard in Malaysia and is three tonnes lighter than other trains of the same kind, saving approximately 20,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

As the transportation hub of the entire country, Kuala Lumpur shares the largest percentage of public transportation trip.

After put into operation, the bullet train will provide considerable convenience to the local people, it said.

Early this month, China operationalised its high-speed train between Beijing and Shanghai, covering over 1,300 km in less than five hours.

The bullet trains are operating between several cities in China for over an year.

The announcement to export a large set of bullet trains to Malaysia came as China and Japan were involved in a fresh row over the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the high-speed trains.

Japanese company Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. threatened to take action if China files for patents on high-speed trains made using Japanese technologies.

A spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) Wang Yongping said on Thursday that China's high-speed rail technologies are much better than those used by Japan's Shinkansen Line.

"The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway and Japan's Shinkansen line cannot be mentioned in the same breath, as many of the technological indicators used by China's high-speed railways are far better than those used in Japan's Shinkansen," Wang said, rejecting the Japanese accusation of pirating the technology.