Railway links China and Laos, carving out new int'l passage

KUNMING - With the last steel beam laid, a railway stretching over 1,000 km from southwest China's Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Vientiane of Laos, was completed on Tuesday.

The track construction of the China-Laos railway was completed in Mengla County of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, which is near a land port on the China-Laos border.

Scheduled for a cross-border railway service in December this year, the direct transport route is expected to slash the travel time between the two cities to less than one day, according to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Laos. The China-Laos Railway is a docking project between the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Laos' strategy to convert itself from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub.