A China-Laos Railway international freight train loaded with goods departed from Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Monday, marking this railway's cumulative cargo transport volume exceeding 90 million tonnes since its launch on Dec 3, 2021, according to China Railway Kunming Group Co., Ltd.
The railway has operated over 80,000 freight trains in total, with more than 23,000 cross-border freight trains among them.
More than 23 percent of the total cargo shipments are cross-border ones.
In 2026, the railway has been transporting over 67,000 tonnes of cargo per day on average, showing its capacity as a "golden passage" in international logistics. The Lancang-Mekong Express freight train, a fast international freight train service operating on the China-Laos Railway, has been running on a regular basis, as the railway department is building this railway's Central Asia freight train brand.
Multiple routes where scheduled China-Central Asia trains are running at speeds of 120 km per hour or 80 km per hour have been established, shortening rail transport time from Laos, Thailand and other countries to Europe to about 15 days.
"Since the opening of the China-Laos Railway, daily cross-border freight train services have increased from two at the initial stage to a peak of 23. The traction tonnage per train has also risen from 2,000 tonnes to 2,800 tonnes, representing a 40-percent increase in single-train capacity," said Fan Haipeng, official of the logistics center of China Railway Kunming Group Co., Ltd.
The range of commodities transported by the China-Laos Railway has expanded from just over 10 categories when the railway first opened to more than 4,000 today, which is expected to further promote the upgrading of economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN countries.
China-Laos Railway transports over 90 million tonnes of cargo
