a high speed rail network in the country by 2025, specifically between Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Durban. The importance of this freight corridor was affirmed in Parliament in July 2021, the Chinese ambassador to South Africa confirmed in April 2022 its intent to collaborate in building a passenger/freight rail link between Johannesburg and Durban, but there remain significant questions about funding. In fall 2022, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa outlined a National Rail Act to provide financing for feasibility studies. Asia Bangladesh Bangladesh considered building a high speed rail link between Dhaka and Chittagong in 2005. The government short-listed France's SNCF and Japan Railways for the project. But the plan was then shelved. Spain and China had later, in 2014, expressed interests in developing the Bangladesh Railway into a high-speed network. In summer of 2021, the Chinese ambassador in Dhaka, Li Jiming, stated that China was interested in investing in the construction of the line. In March 2022, Russian-based RZD International approached Bangladesh Railway about financing the project, for which feasibility and design studies have already been completed; the 225 km route would cost an estimated $11.1 billion. In June 2022, the Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jiming, expressed interest in the project and wrote to Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan for accelerated negotiation of signing a memorandum of understanding between China Railway Group and Bangladesh Railways under a government-to-government Public Private Partnership. The economic feasibility has a good outlook: 90% of the country's trade runs through Chattogram port, and 80% of exports run on the current Dhaka-Chattogram highway, giving strong incentive to create a usable freight rail line. A 300 km/h direct passenger journey would hover at 55 minutes, increased to 75 minutes with intermediate stops in Narayanganj, Cumilla, and Feni; the current travel time is six hours. Cambodia In December 2021, Prime Minister Hun Sen confirmed that the government of Cambodia is interested in high-speed-rail, with a feasibility study for upgrading the current standard line from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville (266 km), and from Phnom Penh to Poipet (386 km). He also stated intent to build new rail lines by continuing from Poipet through Siem Reap to Kampong Thom, and building a line from Phnom penh to Bavet on the Vietnamese border. The current railways can only run between 20–30 km/h, largely due to damage from the civil war in the 1970s, and the line to Sihanoukville was rehabilitated