Valencia has one of the Mediterranean’s biggest ports and is home to manufacturing activities that include a Ford car factory. Together, the regions of Madrid and Valencia account for 31 percent of Spain’s gross domestic product and 19 percent of its population.

Like almost every other Spanish region, however, Valencia has been reeling from the collapse of its property market and has a large debt. Valencia’s regional government, which has also been engulfed in a political corruption scandal, sold 1 billion euros of bonds this month to local investors to help meet its financing needs.

Spain’s financial crisis has recently forced the government to shelve billions of euros of infrastructure projects, although it insisted this week that the southeastern rail project would be completed as scheduled.

Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero Fernández, the government’s general secretary for infrastructure, said during an interview that “we can continue to make dramatic progress in containing costs.” Spain’s rail construction costs have already fallen 19 percent in the last 10 years, she said.

Another Spanish ambition is to leverage its rail expertise worldwide. A consortium of Spanish companies is hoping to secure soon a 6 billion euro contract to connect the Saudi Arabian cities of Medina and Mecca. This month, a delegation from the Ministry of Public Works in Spain traveled to Beijing to present Spain’s latest rail advances to a Chinese government that has been investing billions to extend what is already the world’s biggest high-speed rail network.