The Guangxi-Vietnam freight train promotes trade between China and ASEAN countries. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Guangxi-Vietnam freight train 24505, loaded with 299.4 metric tons of goods, departed from the Nanning International Railway Port in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Nov 30.

The departure marked the 1073rd Guangxi-Vietnam freight train trip, with a cumulative transport of 594,500 tons of import and export goods. The route is a fast lane for trade between China and ASEAN countries.

Since its inaugural run on Nov 28, 2017, the quality of the Guangxi-Vietnam freight train service has improved. The transit time has reduced from over 20 hours to 14.5 hours, and the variety of goods transported has expanded from 205 to over 620.

Zhou Qishou, deputy director of the Nanning Freight Center at the China Railway Nanning Bureau, said that since the end of June this year, the Guangxi-Vietnam freight train has operated routinely with three train trips per week, effectively meeting the demand for cross-border freight transportation.

As of Nov 30, the Pingxiang Railway Port has handled 312,000 tons of import and export goods. Among these, there has been a year-on-year increase of 496 percent in fish meal imports and a remarkable 101.54 percent increase in plywood exports.

In the second half of this year, the demand for the export of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) goods has increased. In response, the China Railway Nanning Bureau has been customizing transportation solutions tailored to customers' needs.

"The railway department has designed a transportation plan for our PVC using 40-foot, 35-ton containers, reducing transportation costs and improving container handling efficiency. We anticipate an increase of nearly 4,000 tons in the monthly export cargo transportation," said Zhang Xia, business manager at Guangxi Fantai International Logistics Co Ltd.