President of China Railway Group commits suicide - reports

Bai Zhongren, the president of China Railway Group, a state-owned engineering giant behind many of the country's largest railway projects, jumped to his death over the weekend, Chinese media reported on Monday.

China Railway Group, which is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges, said in a short statement on Sunday that Bai died of "an accident", but did not give any details surrounding his death.

The operation of the company remains normal and its chairman will assume the responsibilities of the president until a new appointment to replace Bai, according to the statement.

The 53-year-old executive jumped to his death after suffering from depression in recent years, reported China Business News, a Shanghai-based business newspaper, citing Bai's family members.

Economic Information, a newspaper published by the official Xinhua News Agency, quoted a colleague as saying that part of the cause of Bai's depression might be the heavy debts that his company has run up. Wang Mengshu, one of the country's top railway engineers, said that Bai had been under intense pressure as some branches of the group ran into problems paying their workers' wages at the end of last year.

By the end of October, 2013, China Railways Group had total assets worth 626.5 billion yuan, and total outstanding debts of 531.9 billion yuan, with a debt-to-asset ratio of almost 85 per cent, according to the company's Q3 filings.

Bai’s suicide came as Chinese courts are about to hand down verdicts for Zhang Shuguang, a former deputy chief engineer of the now-defunct Ministry and of Railways, and Ding Shumiao, a businesswoman with close tie with disgraced former railway minister Liu Zhijun.