An attendant in traditional costumes of a passenger train from Kunming to Vientiane along the China-Laos Railway extends greetings to passengers. (Photo/Chen Chang)

Stretching 1,035 kilometers from Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan province to Vientiane in Laos, the China-Laos Railway has become a "golden corridor" linking China and ASEAN, spurring regional economic growth along its route.

Since it opened in December 2021, freight volume has posted double-digit growth for three consecutive years, while daily cross-border passenger flows have risen from around 300 to as many as 1,300. By August 2025, the railway had transported over 66.5 million tons of cargo, including more than 3,000 categories of cross-border goods.

Durian season is the busiest time of year for Zhang Dehuan. Working in cross-border freight on the China-Laos Railway in Yunnan, he never expected this route would become so popular. A 2022 business trip to Laos with a trade delegation revealed the railway's potential, prompting Zhang to lease 100 refrigerated units in a single bold investment.

It was not easy at the beginning. Zhang promoted his services at fruit wholesale markets in Kunming for days without securing a single order.

"It's not about the freight rate," one durian importer told him. With a container of durians worth about 1 million yuan ($140,773), importers were unwilling to risk spoilage. The freight charge of 40,000 yuan was trivial compared with the potential loss of an entire shipment if freshness could not be guaranteed.

Since no importer was willing to take the risk, Zhang decided to buy a batch of durians himself to demonstrate the service.

A train carrying fresh fruits arrives in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan province via the China-Laos Railway. (Photo/Bai Guibin)

Once the shipment was on the move, Zhang checked the location and temperature of the container every few hours. After 26 hours, durians transported via the new refrigerated containers on the China-Laos Railway arrived in Kunming in perfect condition, where it was snapped up immediately. One impressed trader signed a deal on the spot to have six containers of durians transported by Zhang's company.

Before the railway, durians were mostly transported by truck, which took longer and was easily disrupted by landslides, roadblocks, or congestion during the rainy season. Today, with smart refrigerated containers on the China-Laos Railway allowing for GPS tracking and remote temperature control, the journey is faster, the costs comparable, and spoilage rates far lower.

Word quickly spread in Yunnan's fruit trade circles that "the China-Laos Railway is the safer bet for shipping durians." Business picked up.

In 2023, cross-border freight on the line reached approximately 4.22 million tons, up nearly 95 percent year on year.

The seasonal surge in perishable goods also tested customs clearance efficiency. "To improve capacity, customs introduced a pre-declaration model, cutting clearance time to just two to five hours," said Su Ming, head of railway port supervision at Mengla customs under Kunming Customs.

With pre-declaration, data is submitted before arrival, and if no inspection is needed, cargo can clear customs without delay. Meanwhile, the railway increased the frequency of its Lancang-Mekong Express freight service to as many as six trains per day. Now, 18 cross-border freight trains run daily on the China-Laos Railway, significantly boosting capacity.

According to Kunming customs, Yunnan's agricultural trade with ASEAN reached 18.62 billion yuan in the first half of this year, up 23.5 percent year on year. More than half of this trade moved via the China-Laos Railway.

"Strong freight demand reflects strong domestic demand," said Zhu Jiang, head of freight operations at China Railway Kunming Bureau Group Co., Ltd. Southeast Asian fruits such as durian and mangosteen are increasingly popular among Chinese consumers. With improved rail capacity, overseas farming, logistics, and related industries have rapidly expanded. In Thailand, durian cultivation has grown significantly in recent years, with over 90 percent of exports bound for China. By the end of August, the China-Laos Railway had transported more than 155,000 tons of durians, up over 90 percent from a year earlier.

At the same time, vegetables from Yunnan are making their way onto supermarket shelves in Vientiane. "It takes just 26 hours for Yunnan vegetables to reach Vientiane and only another day to get to Thailand, almost half the time needed for road transport," Zhu said.

A bullet train runs on a section of the China-Laos Railway in Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan province. (Photo/Li Yunsheng)

Chinese goods such as clothing, new energy vehicles, and photovoltaic products are also in high demand across Southeast Asia. Since the line opened, the number of goods transported has grown from over 500 types to more than 3,000. Mohan Railway Port now ranks among China's top rail ports in efficiency, making it the country's largest rail gateway to ASEAN.

"The shift from 'channel economy' to 'port economy,' and now to 'industrial economy,' is becoming visible along the China-Laos Railway," said Xiong Bin, director of the ASEAN Study Center at Kunming University of Science and Technology.

Places such as Mohan in China and Boten and Vientiane in Laos are evolving from agricultural hubs into logistics and industrial centers. The China-Laos Mohan-Boten Economic Cooperation Zone has already attracted over 300 enterprises, creating clusters of industries such as cold-chain storage, processing, and cross-border e-commerce. From connecting two countries to linking the entire Indochina Peninsula, the China-Laos Railway is continuing to unlock new potential.