SHANGHAI, Apr. 18 (AP) -- Chinese trains running at up to 200 kph (124 mph) began service on Wednesday as part of a new bid to keep up with ballooning transport demand, state media reported.

The first of scores of high-speed trains left Shanghai at 5:38 a.m. (2138 GMT) Wednesday morning for the nearby city of Suzhou, covering the approximately 85 kilometers (53 miles) in about 39 minutes, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The speed upgrade is the sixth in history on China's railways, which provide a vital, low-cost transit link between the scattered regions of the vast nation of 1.3 billion people.

Xinhua cited railway officials as saying Chinese trains carried a quarter of the world's railway freight and passengers last year, despite the country having just 6 percent of the global total of railways by length.

With land availability growing ever-tighter, especially in the heavily populated Yangtze river delta region around Shanghai, increasing speeds is seen as the best way of boosting capacity.

Xinhua quoted Vice Railways Minister Hu Yadong as saying the speed increase would raise passenger capacity by more than 18 percent and freight capacity by more than 12 percent.