May 18, CGTN Japanese: The China-Laos railway is an important transportation route connecting China with Southeast Asian fruit and vegetable markets. According to China Railway Kunming Bureau Group, the volume of fresh cargo imported and exported on the China-Laos railway this year has reached 64,000 tons, more than three times that of the same period last year, of which 58,000 tons are imported fruits.

The premises of the Kunming Railway Container Center Station in Yunnan Province were crowded in the early hours of the 14th. A freight train of the China-Laos Railway’s “Lancaang Express” loaded with Southeast Asian fruits slowly entered the platform. After the train stopped, the loading and unloading device securely hoisted the refrigerated boxes filled with fresh fruit onto a nearby car, which then shipped them to the consumer market.

According to Hu Jingkun, director of the Shipping Center of Kunming East Station of the Kunming Bureau of China Railway, a freight train loaded with fruit can enter the container center and unload within 90 minutes, and then the empty refrigerated container can be transferred to the train within the next 90 minutes, ensuring a seamless connection between pick-up, transportation, movement, loading and unloading. To meet the logistics needs of perishable fruits such as durian and mangosteen, the railway department has procured more than 1,000 refrigerated containers, prioritized the transportation capacity, and used the international freight train “Lanmei Express” specially operated by the China-Laos Railway to transport the fruit from Kunming, China to Vientiane, Laos in just 26 hours.

Data shows that after the large shipment of Southeast Asian fruits in May, the volume of imported and exported fruits and vegetables at the Mohan railway port in Yunnan Province also peaked, with the average daily volume remaining at more than 1,500 tons. In addition, the cumulative volume of cargo transported on the China-Laos railway from January to April this year was 6.55 million tons, up 14.9% year-on-year, of which cross-border cargo exceeded 1.8 million tons, up 24.1% year-on-year. The items of cross-border cargo on the China-Laos railway have also expanded from just over 10 categories at the time of the railway’s opening, such as rubber, chemical fertilizers, and various commodities, to 2,900 items, including electronics, solar power generation, communications, and automobiles. (c)CGTN Japanese/AFPBB News