China-Laos Railway serves 62.5 mil passengers, shipping 72.5 mil tons of cargo

A China-Laos international passenger train is about to enter the Mohan station near the China-Laos border section in south Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture.

The number of international passenger trains running between Kunming, China, and Vientiane, Laos, has increased to four, with cross-border passenger capacity per train rising from the initial 250 to 420 seats.

The daily number of international passengers on the railway has surged from 300 at the outset to a peak of 1,400. To date, 2,674 international passenger trains have been operated on the railway.

Tourists wait for their train at the Xishuangbanna railway station in Jinghong city, south Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna prefecture.

Tourists wait for their train at the Xishuangbanna railway station in Jinghong city, south Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna prefecture.

On the other hand, 64,000 freight trains have been operated over the past four years, transporting 72.5 million tons of cargo and serving 19 countries and regions.

The railway has emerged as a "golden corridor" for connectivity between China and ASEAN, facilitating the China-ASEAN community with a shared future and promoting regional development and cultural exchanges.

The daily number of cross-border freight trains has increased from two at the beginning to a peak of 23. Cross-border cargo shipments have exceeded 16 million tons, and the goods were further transported to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and others.

A gantry crane has loading and unloading operations in the freight yard of Mohan station on the China-Laos Railway.

Refrigerated containers are loaded onto a China-Laos freight train at the Wangjiaying freight hub in central Yunnan’s Kunming city.

The fast freight trains on China-Laos Railway have been connected to China-Europe express freight trains from the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu, reducing the ASEAN-Europe transport time to 15 days.

Seasonal ASEAN fruits like durians and mangosteens, as well as specialty products such as beer from Southeast Asian countries, can now quickly reach the European market via China-Laos Railway.

Reporting by Zhang Weiming, He Siyuan and Liu Zijian; Photos by Zhou Tao and Na Jianbo; Trans-editing by Wang Shixue