Photo: CFP

The railway passenger and cargo transport in the first quarter of this year has shown a robust growth, providing a solid support for the overall recovery of economic operation, per data from the country's state railway operator released on Saturday. 

The number of railway passenger trips in China in the first three months of this year reached 753 million, up 66 percent year-on-year, the China State Railway Group, the country's state railway operator, said. Of which, the passenger trips transported in March per day on average was 8.58 million, a year-on-year increase of 171 percent, basically returning to the level of the same period in 2019.

After nearly three years of service suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link resumed operation on January 15.

The operator said the two-way passenger flow has continued to increase, with the average daily number of passengers exceeding 20,000, and the highest daily number of more than 40,000, which also promotes the flow of people and trade exchanges between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

The group also handled 970 million tons of goods, an increase of 2.3 percent from the same period of last year, further increasing the recovery of industrial production.

A total of 4,186 China-Europe freight trains were transported, delivering 450,000 TEUs of goods, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent and 28 percent respectively, and the China-Laos Railway transported 1.004 million tons of goods, a year-on-year increase of 276 percent, the country's railway operator said. 

As of April 3, the China-Laos Railway has been in operation for 16 months, maintaining a strong trajectory for both passenger and freight transportation. Currently, the categories of goods have been expanding from more than 100 types at the beginning of its opening to more than 2,000 types. 

The Manzhouli port in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region saw total cargo imports and exports hit 5.04 million tons in the first quarter of 2023, up 56.9 percent year-on-year, and marking a record high in the past five years, according to CCTV News on Saturday. 

Global Times