China's Chongqing to further strengthen int'l land-sea trade corridor

CHONGQING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality will further speed up the construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a trade and logistics passage with Chongqing as its operating center, according to the annual session of the municipal people's congress on Friday.

The city will strive to enhance the passage's connectivity with China-Europe Freight Train services, the golden waterway of the Yangtze River and the international aviation network, said Hu Henghua, mayor of Chongqing, while delivering the government work report at the session.

In 2022, Chongqing saw over 148,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers with a total worth of 25.12 billion yuan (about 3.73 billion U.S. dollars) transported via the passage, a year-on-year increase of 32 percent and 34 percent, respectively.

A transportation network covering 393 ports in 119 countries and regions has been established, according to Hu.

The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor is a major outcome of the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity, which was launched in November 2015, covering financial services, aviation, transportation and logistics, and information communication.

Projects worth about 54.39 billion U.S. dollars have been inked under the initiative, which have effectively improved the interconnection between the western region of China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to the mayor.