Aerial photo taken on Nov. 19, 2020 shows a cargo ship leaving a berth of the Qinzhou Port in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Zhang Ailin)
BEIJING, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a cross-border trade and logistics passage jointly built by China and Southeast Asian countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), witnessed rapid development in the first half of the year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner on Thursday.
The land-sea freight trains of the trade corridor made 2,705 trips in the first half, a year-on-year increase of 112 percent. Specially, cross-border freight trains between China and Vietnam via Pingxiang Port made a total of 886 trips in the period, a year-on-year increase of 51.2 percent.
Meanwhile, during the period, the Beibu Gulf Port in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the Port of Yangpu in south China's Hainan Province handled a container throughput of 2.61 million TEUs and 565,000 TEUs, respectively, up 22.3 percent and 56.7 percent year on year.
The above figures reflect the rising operation efficiency of the trade corridor, according to the NDRC.
In the first half of the year, the construction of infrastructure facilities along the trade corridor also progressed steadily.
Railway projects such as the electrification of the Huaihua-Liuzhou section of the Jiaozuo-Liuzhou Railway and the second line of the Chongqing-Huaihua Railway were put into operation in the period. The first and second-stage east channel expansion project of the Qinzhou Port in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was also completed as scheduled. (Edited by Hu Pingchao with Xinhua Silk Road, hupingchao@xinhua.org)