December 1st 2013, the high-speed railway between Xiamen & Shenzhen is in Trial Operation.

With the approach of the opening date of the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed railway on 26th December, there has been a lot of discussion and predictions about the influence the railway will bring to Xiamen.

Currently, Xiamen has two high-speed railway lines in operation, the Xiamen-Fuzhou railway and Xiamen-Longyan Railway, but people are paying extra attention to the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed railway as it will connect three of China’s special economic zones: Xiamen, Shantou and Shenzhen, and most importantly, it will bring Xiamen within 4 hours journey to Hong Kong, a world famous "Shopping Paradise".

One of the likely results is that the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed railway will greatly boost shopping-focused travel to Hong Kong, with experts predicting that Hong Kong will become Xiamen’s “tax-free back garden” after the opening of the hotly anticipated railway.

A local daily newspaper has compared the duration and costs of traveling to Hong Kong from Xiamen by bullet train, flight and self-driving and concluded that the bullet train will be the best choice.

After the opening of the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed railway, it will take only about 4 hours to travel from Xiamen to Hong Kong by bullet train, almost the same as by plane, taking into consideration flight delays and waiting time at the terminal, but the cost of the bullet train to Hong Kong is around 200 yuan, only one-fifth of the cost of Xiamen-Hong Kong airplane tickets.

Experts said that the opening of the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed railway will definitely pose a huge challenge to the Xiamen-Shenzhen long-distance buses and Xiamen-Hong Kong flights because of its cost and time advantages.

"I am looking forward to the opening of the Xia-Shen railway, and I can’t wait to take bullet trains to Hong Kong. It will save me a lot of money and time on transportation,” said Xiao He, a 28-year-old full-time housewife in Xiamen who travels to Hong Kong for shopping two or three times a year.

Professor Xie Yong said the opening of the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed railway will be a landmark event in Xiamen’s future development.

"It will greatly increase economic and trade exchanges between Xiamen, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, change people’s lifestyles, and generate a huge impact on Xiamen’s future development,” Prof. Xie said.

"Xiamen can learn from the successful development experiences of Shenzhen, the ‘frontier’ of China’s Reform and Opening Up, and access Hong Kong through Shenzhen.” He added.