The number of countries exporting cargos to China in the New Western Land-Sea Corridor has been increasing, officials from the China Railway Nanning Group said on Aug 17.

"Apart from Singapore and Vietnam, China has now started importing cargos from ASEAN countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand," said Chen Xiaohui, deputy director of the freight department of the China Railway Nanning Group.

Chen said that the fruit imported from ASEAN countries in the first seven months via Pingxiang Checkpoint by railway amounted to 18,000 metric tons, and has witnessed a steady growth. The checkpoint used to only allow Vietnamese fruit to enter the border and Thailand fruit has been approved to enter the Chinese border from Pingxiang since May 2020. 

The construction of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor has boosted the trade between West China and ASEAN. Statistics show that the trade volume between ASEAN and four provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) namely Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guangxi has climbed from 447.1 billion yuan in 2017 to 590.7 billion yuan in 2019 with a compound growth rate of 15 percent.

"Now we can feel that the land-sea trade corridor has more and more appeal to ASEAN countries," added Chen. 

The total number of sea-rail intermodal trains in operation grew nearly 25 times from 178 in 2017, the first year of operation, to 4,607 in 2020.