In recent days, the economic press and several Chinese observers have discovered, dumbfounded, the debt level of 28 Chinese metro companies: 4,300 billion yuan (525 billion euros). Immaculate, air -conditioned, automated, these infrastructures offer a mode of transport as practical as prestigious for the cities that take it. But their operating cost turns out to be exorbitant.
Of the 55 Chinese cities with a metro network, 28 have released their operating results for the year 2024. We learn, for example, that the Shenzhen metro company, the busiest in the country behind that of Shanghai with daily peaks of 11.8 million passengers, has a daily loss of 100 million yuan. In 2024, the company’s deficit, which belongs to the municipality, reached 33.46 billion yuan, reported, on May 28, the economic media online media Zhigu Queshi.
Another example with the Foshan metro (Guangdong). The company generated 586 million yuan in ticket office and received 2 billion yuan of public subsidies, but it spent 2.7 billion yuan and finished the year in the red. In Chongqing, personnel charges represent half of the total operating cost (energy, maintenance, cleanliness, etc.). Security is also a major expense position: a Chinese metro station operating like a station or an airport, with passengers and their bags scanned from the entrance, not to mention the plethoric vigils patrolled on the quays and in the oars.
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