After setting up railway lines to far off locations including Europe and various countries in Asia, China recently started the China-Laos Railway line that runs 1,035 km, including 422 km in Laos, from the city of Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, to Lao capital Vientiane. The railway line has also facilitated China’s exports to Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore.

As a result of this new railway line, China’s trade with Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore can be expected to rise in the coming period as Laos shares a common border with Myanmar and Thailand, while Thailand and Singapore are well connected.

The railway line is part of Laos’ strategy to convert itself from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub and reduce the travel time between Vientiane and Kunming to about 10 hours.

After setting up railway lines to far off locations including Europe and various countries in Asia, China recently started the China-Laos Railway line that runs 1,035 km, from the city of Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, to Lao capital Vientiane. The railway line has also facilitated China’s exports to Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore.

The line, inaugurated on December 3, 2021, has already witnessed about 116 cargo trains as of January 3, thus successfully transporting over 49,800 tonnes of goods amounting to 676 million yuan (approximately $106 million), as per the data released by Kunming Customs.

So far, goods from 12 cities in 7 provinces from China have successfully been transported to Laos via international freight trains.

China considers railway route as a more feasible alternative for transporting its goods to Europe and various parts of Asia to the more costly air freight and the far slower sea freight. It is also the country’s way of developing the inland regions that are located far from the seaports.

Freight train services between China and Europe grew by 22 per cent year-over-year to reach over 15,000 in 2021, contributing towards stabilising the global supply chains amid the pandemic.

The volume of goods traded between Vietnam and China through the two border-gate railway stations of Lao Cai and Dong Dang was over 838,000 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 43 per cent year on year (YoY).

The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China handled 346 China-Vietnam freight train trips in 2021, up by close to 108 per cent compared to 2020. This service is expected to make over 400 trips between the two countries this year.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)