Photo/Jiang Wenyao (Xinhua)

The China-Laos freight train service linking east China's Shandong Province with Laos started service on Thursday, local authorities said.

The first outbound train departed from the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) in the port city of Qingdao, Shandong on Thursday. It is the province's first international freight train heading for Laos after the China-Laos Railway started operations earlier this month.

Carrying 50 containers with goods worth about 1.18 million U.S. dollars, the train will leave China from the port of Mohan, southwest China's Yunnan Province and is expected to arrive in Vientiane, the Laotian capital, in about a week.

The new route is SCODA's second linking the province to Southeast Asia, following the route from Shandong to Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

To date, the demonstration area has 15 international freight train routes in operation. During the first 11 months of 2021, the SCODA had seen off 524 China-Europe freight trains, up 45.6 percent year on year.

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