ONE of the biggest railway giants in the world, the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) will use Singapore as its Asia-Pacific hub to tap on the region's plans to set up high-speed inter-city and inter-country railway networks. JR East opened its Singapore office in March this year, its first outside Japan in Asia, as well as a European hub in Brussels in Belgium in November 2012.
JR East is the largest passenger railway company in the world with revenues of about 2.5 trillion yen (S$32 billion). It employs 72,000 people and runs all the high-speed trains (called Shinkansen) north of Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan area railway network and local rail networks in East Japan. It also owns the railway infrastructure, including 1,700 stations, rolling stock, tracks, etc.