BEIJING - China's railway investment will maintain steady growth, with 600 billion yuan ($96.2 billion) to 650 billion yuan to be invested next year, said the country's top economic planner.

Investment demand in China's railway construction will reach 1.8 trillion yuan in the 2013-2015 period, China Securities Journal reported Thursday, citing a report on railway development from the National Development and Reform Commission.

China will continue the construction of 24,000 kilometers of railways in the next three years, which will require a total investment of 1.5 trillion yuan, Zhang Jiangyu, a transportation official with the NDRC, was quoted as saying.

Zhang said he expects construction on a number of new major projects to start during the 2013-2015 period, including 4,500 km of high-speed railways allowing speeds of over 200 km per hour, which will require a total investment of 500 billion yuan.

Although high-speed rail construction stagnated after a bullet train crash near the eact China city of Wenzhou left 40 people dead in July 2011, China has cautiously resumed the construction and operation of high-speed railways this year.

Fixed-asset investment in railways rose 3.1 percent year-on-year to 506.97 billion yuan during the first 11 months of this year, accounting for 80 percent of this year's investment plan, according to data from the Ministry of Railways.

Nearly 4,000 km of railways will have been put into operation by the end of this year, 2,932 km of which will be high-speed rails and inter-city express railways, according to the NDRC report.

China currently has more than 9,300 km of high-speed rails in operation, as the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway, the world's longest high-speed line, opened on Wednesday.

More than 6,000 km of railways are likely to start operating in 2013, more than 3,000 km of which will be high-speed railways and 3,300 km will be conventional lines, Zhang forecast.