Bombardier's venture in China gets $453 million state rail contract

(Reuters) - Canadian manufacturer Bombardier Inc's Chinese joint venture said on Thursday it had won a $453 million contract to supply 168 high-speed train cars to state-owned China Railway Corp (CRC), making it the second order win this year for China's growing high-speed network.

The Chinese joint venture, Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd (BST), launched in 1998, is 50 percent owned by Chinese locomotive firm CRRC Sifang Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co Ltd.

In September, CRC awarded the joint venture a contract worth $324 million to supply 120 train cars by the end of this year.

Bombardier's Berlin-based transportation unit has six joint ventures in China, seven wholly foreign-owned enterprises and more than 7,000 employees, the company said in a statement.

Together, the joint ventures have delivered more than 4,000 railway passenger cars, 580 electric locomotives and over 2,500 metro cars, Monorail, APM (Automated People Mover), and trams to China’s growing urban mass-transit markets.

The win for Bombardier comes in the middle of escalating diplomatic tension between Beijing and Ottawa, resulting in China detaining two Canadians this weeks on allegations they harmed state security.

The dispute started after China reacted angrily to Canada's arrest on Dec. 1 of Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL], at the request of the United States. Meng was released on bail on Tuesday.

Bombardier representatives were not immediately available to comment on whether the dispute has affected their dealings in China.

(Reporting by Debroop Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Jonathan Oatis)