Ttickets and premium seats on high-speed trains operating on two lines in East China.
Experts said passengers will benefit from a more market-oriented operation of high-speed railways, following the Ministry of Railways' decision to ease its grip over railway management.
The Shanghai Railway Bureau on Monday announced through its Sina Weibo micro blog that business class tickets on high-speed trains on the Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou lines will be reduced by 30 percent between May 18 and June 20.
Tickets for premium seats on the two lines over the same period will be cut by 10 percent.
That means a business class ticket from Shanghai to Nanjing, roughly priced at 438 yuan ($70), will now be available for 307 yuan. A premium seat on the same route costs 263 yuan, and the discounted price will be 237 yuan.
Business class and premium seats account for 2 percent of a high-speed train's total capacity.
The rail bureau said that the policy involves 55 trains running on the Shanghai-Nanjing line and 61 trains on Shanghai-Hangzhou line. Some of the discounts are only available when passengers buy tickets seven to 12 days in advance of the departure date.
The bureau added that the special price policy is subject to change in the future, which will be decided by market demands.
Industry insiders said this is the first time that the country's high-speed railways have given discounts to passengers, despite calls from the public for lower ticket prices in the past couple of years.
