China launches new rail-road cargo service linking Lanzhou with Islamabad

BEIJING: China has launched a new rail and road cargo service linking Lanzhou, capital of its northwestern Gansu province, with Islamabad in Pakistan, state-run media reported on Wednesday.

The first train carrying 30 carriages of mechanical equipment, auto parts and daily necessities left a logistics centre on Tuesday morning in Lanzhou, bound for Kashgar in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, state-run China Daily reported.

The goods will then be transported to Islamabad by a highway, it said.

Luo Zhe, deputy director with the management committee of the international land port of Gansu (Lanzhou), said that the 4,500-km trip will take 13 days, around 15 days less than the traditional sea route.

This was the second freight train service launched by Gansu to south Asia.

In 2016, a rail and road cargo service opened between Lanzhou and Kathmandu, Nepal.

"I hope the new rail and road cargo service can set a good example for cooperation between China and Pakistan and encourage more countries and regions to join the Belt and Road Initiative," Luo said.

China is constructing a multi-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship venture of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a pet project of Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at enhancing Beijing's influence around the world through China-funded infrastructure projects.

The CPEC is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan's strategic Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.