China is likely to become a worldwide exporter of high-speed trains to compete with the market's established European suppliers, a senior executive of one of the sector's leading companies has predicted.

Edzard Lübben, vice-president for high-speed rail of the transport arm of Germany's Siemens, nevertheless insisted he was “very comfortable” with China's system of requiring foreign suppliers to transfer technology to Chinese partners.

He was sceptical, meanwhile, about the potential of European rail liberalisation to produce the once-expected surge of orders there. Mr Lübben was speaking against the backdrop of expected rapid growth in the world market for passenger trains capable of 220km/h or more. The Asian market is expected to expand 9.3 per cent a year until 2016, according to research commissioned by Unife, the European railway industry association. Much of the growth is set to be in China, which is building 7,000km of dedicated, high-speed rail routes.