A meeting between North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Northwest China's Shaanxi province was held in Inner Mongolia's capital city, Hohhot, on Feb 17 to discuss the preparation work for the Ordos-Yulin-Yan'an High-speed Railway.

The high-speed railway will start from Ordos city in Inner Mongolia, pass through Shaanxi's Yulin and Yan'an cities, and finally connect to Shaanxi's capital city, Xi'an.

The length of the new high-speed railway line will be 389.82 kilometers, 336.52 km in Shaanxi province and 53.3 km in Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The designed speed of the high-speed railway will be 350km per hour, and the total investment of the project is estimated to be 62.31 billion yuan ($9.3 billion).

Construction of the high-speed railway is expected to start within the year, and the construction period is scheduled to last 4.5 years.

When the high-speed railway is put into use, a single journey from Ordos to Yulin will be shortened to one hour, and a trip from Ordos to Xi'an will only need 2.5 hours. This will dramatically improve the transportation and exchanges between Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia.