Aerial photo taken on Jan. 6, 2022 shows an outbound freight train heading for Laos from Huaihua City, central China's Hunan Province.Photo:Xinhua

As the China-Laos Railway will soon mark its first anniversary of operation, a group of Chinese firms and research institutions have kicked off a two-week field study along the route of the railway, exploring cooperation with local companies in Laos and Thailand, the Global Times learned on Wednesday.

At the invitation of the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Thai Logistics Service Provider Federation, Kunming South Asia & Southeast Asia International Logistics Research Institute (SSILR) and a group of companies from Southwest China's Yunnan Province started the study on Saturday, said a statement sent to the Global Times by SSILR.

The delegation will mainly conduct a field study along the Lao section of the railway, the linkage section of the railway with Thailand's rail network, and the Land Port Logistics Park in Bangkok, Thailand.

The delegation and Laos-based IHC Group reached a cooperation consensus on investment in industrial logistics parks, protection of ancient tea trees in the Lancang-Mekong Basin and other areas.

It also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Chamber of Commerce of Laos in Yunnan to jointly invest in the construction of an overseas warehouse project in Vientiane, cultivating a regional logistics hub. 

As a landmark project of high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, the 1,035-kilometer China-Laos railway links Yunnan's Kunming city with the Lao capital Vientiane, and it officially opened to service on December 3, 2021.

About half a year later, the railway was extended through to Thailand. According to the Xinhua News Agency, a freight transit yard of the railway was officially put into operation on July 1, with the first railway containers heading to Thailand's Laem Chabang port.

The cargo transportation volume of the China-Laos railway passed the 10-million-ton benchmark on November 7 after achieving a capacity increase for several consecutive months since its launch last December, according to China Railway Kunming Bureau Group.

Global Times