On the morning of April 10, as construction workers skillfully laid the final 25-meter steel rail on the track bed of the section between Pazhou and Xiancun, the first operating section (Wanqingsha to Xiancun) of Guangzhou Metro Line 18 officially achieved short-track completion, providing favorable conditions for the full launch of subsequent construction.

　　Line 18 connects downtown Guangzhou with the Nansha Free Trade Zone. With a designed maximum speed of 160 km/h, it is currently the fastest metro project under construction in China. On March 7, Line 18 successfully completed progressive speed-increase tests, reaching a maximum operating speed of 176 km/h, setting a new record for the highest trial-run speed of a metro in China.

　　The first operating section starts in the south at Wanqingsha Town in Nansha District and runs north-south through Nansha District, Panyu District and Haizhu District to Xiancun in Tianhe District, with a total length of 58.3 kilometers, all underground. Once the line opens, the travel time between Nansha and downtown Guangzhou will be greatly compressed to within 30 minutes.

　　Since track laying officially began on July 10, 2020, in the face of multiple difficulties such as numerous constraints in the early stage of construction and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guangzhou Metro actively optimized the construction organization plan, integrated construction resources, and mobilized more than 1,000 management personnel and more than 3,000 construction workers. On the basis of the originally planned 13 mechanized track-laying bases, 8 additional manual scattered-laying bases were added, and 25 concrete mixer trucks, 52 rail cars, more than 110 track-laying machines and 10 rail welding machines were deployed, with multiple teams working in rotating shifts.

　　Up to now, the civil engineering works of the first operating section of Line 18 have been 95% completed. All 8 stations have been topped out and are undergoing station decoration and mechanical and electrical installation; all 7 sections have been fully connected and are undergoing track, power supply and other specialized construction. The Wanqingsha Depot is undergoing mechanical and electrical installation. The track area of the connecting line between Panyu Square and Longzhen Parking Lot and the Longzhen Parking Lot have been handed over with the three rights.