China-Laos Railway celebrates first anniversary of international travel

Saturday marked the first anniversary of the international passenger service of the China-Laos Railway, handling 700,000 passenger trips in a year, the China State Railway Group, the company which oversees the service's operation, said on Saturday.

Among them, about 180,000 passenger trips from 87 countries and regions took the cross-border service. 

Over the year, all international trains departed on time and the on-time arrival rate was 99 percent, ensuring safe, smooth and orderly transportation, the company said.

The 1,035-kilometer China-Laos Railway, a landmark project of the Belt and Road Initiative, began operation in December 2021. It has turned Laos from a landlocked country into a land-linked hub in the Indo-China Peninsula.

International passenger train service between Kunming, the capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province, to Vientiane, capital of Laos, began on April 13, last year. The service cut travel time between the two cities to about 9 hours and 30 minutes.