Research On The Fiscal Subsidies Of High-speed Railway System

The railway first appeared in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the19th century.As the first public transport, it played an important role in promoting British industrializationand even the development of the world economy. At the beginning of the20th century, withthe emergence of the automobile as well as the popularity of civil aviation, railway transportgradually going downhill. In the1970s, a serious worldwide oil crisis broke out. In order tomaintain the sustainability of economic progress, various countries began to considerreforming the traditional mode of transport energy structure, and while the railway is the onlynon-oil energy traffic pattern, rail transport receive attention again. In1964JapaneseShinkansen which is the first world high-speed railway has been built, and it has achievedgreat success in the technical, commercial, financial and political. High-speed railway, as aquick, comfortable, safe and environmentally transportation, has aroused widespread concern.Since then, countries all over the world have set off a rush to build high-speed railway.At present, China’s high-speed rail system has the world’s most abundant technology andstrongest integration capabilit, therefore China has become the country which has the longestrunning mileage, the fastest run and the largest scale under construction of high-speed railsystem. The high-speed railway in China has entered a period of rapid growth, but thedrawbacks of high-speed railway development are gradually revealed. Some problems, suchas the tight high-speed railway construction funds, the poor profitability at the early stages ofoperation and the rising debt ratio, can not be ignored. From the perspective of foreignhigh-speed rail developing history, the construction and development funds of theoperating-effective high-speed railway are mainly from the direct financial investment andoperational financial subsidies. Therefore, form the financial investment perspective, thispaper will research following issues: the reasons why China’s high-speed raiyway needfiancial investment as well as how to give the investment. The article “finanvial investment”isa generalized concept, which includes the financial capital investment during the constructionof high-speed railway and the fiscal subsidies during the operation of high-speed railway.Firstly, this paper analyzes the rationality of accelerate the construction of high-speedrailway, because it has met the needs of economic development. Secondly, we analyze theneed for China’s high-speed railway in need of finacial investment: for one, the constructionfunds of China’s high-speed railway become increasingly and the debt ratio continued to rise,which will affect the sustainable development of high-speed railway, so we need the supportof the Government’s financial capital to solve these problems; for anthor, the high-speed railway has poor profitability during the initial operation, and external benefits generated bythe high-speed rail is not internalize, so it needs government financial subsidies to eliminateexternal benefits, at the same time it will the operational efficiency. On this basis, the articleexplores how to give the financial investment for high-speed railway in two parts. On the onehand, it is need to increase the proportion of government capital investment during theconstruction of high-speed railway, the paper argues that a reasonable proportion of thegovernment capital investment should be50%-70%of the total amount of funds for theconstruction, and if there are other investment entities, this ratio can be moderately lower. Onthe other hand, government should give financial subsidies for high-speed rail during theoperation of high-speed railway, amount of subsidy is determined by two methods: first, usingthe net present value method to determine the amount of subsidies; second, through classifingthe travelers according to the level of their income, railway enterprises give different faredeals for different income groups, and the government give subsidies to railway enterprisesfor the preferential part. Finally, the article put forward some suggestions to improve theefficiency in use of high-speed railway financial capital.