A rollout ceremony for a diesel locomotive that will be exported to South Africa was held on Tuesday in Lushun, Dalian, a port city in northeast China's Liaoning province.

The new locomotive is of a narrow gauge diesel variety, and it has the highest power of any such variety in the world. It is designed with a power of 3,300 kilowatts and a maximum speed of 100 kilometers per hour.

In March 2014, CRRC Dalian Co., Ltd. signed a contract worth about $900 million to export 232 diesel locomotives to South Africa. It is the largest single order for the export of Chinese locomotives to date.

CRRC Dalian has also invested roughly 10 billion yuan in building world-class track transportation equipment and a manufacturing base in its new plant in Lushun. An important part of this base is the circular test line, which has a total length of 4.58 kilometers. The test line, with its multi-system, multi-gauge and elevated form, is the first of its kind in China. The new locomotives are the first batch of products to be tested on this circular test line.