A freight train route between the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) in east China’s Shandong Province and Samarkand in Uzbekistan was officially launched on Wednesday.

The “Qilu” China-Europe freight train carrying 100 TEUs of cargo worth about $18 million, including daily necessities, machine parts and tires, departed from Horgos Port and is scheduled to arrive in Samarkand in 10 days.

In the first eight months of this year, a total of 523 China-Europe trains have been dispatched from the SCODA, a year-on-year increase of 46.1 percent. The import and export volume of Shandong Province to other SCO member countries by railway transportation reached 17.24 billion yuan ($2.4 billion), a year-on-year increase of 37.2 percent, according to statistics of Qingdao Customs.

Statistics show that in the first eight months of this year, the import and export volume of Shandong Province, a sister province of Uzbekistan's Samarkand state, reached 3.69 billion yuan ($0.51 billion), a year-on-year increase of 12.1 percent.

The year 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Uzbekistan.