Construction going well on China-Laos railway

Construction of the Kunming-Vientiane Railway to link China and Laos is proceeding smoothly, according to the company in charge of the project's Chinese section.

Photo taken on May 31, 2020 shows the construction site of the China-Laos Railway in northern Laos. The China-Laos Railway will run more than 400 km from Boten border gate in northern Laos, bordering China, to Vientiane with an operating speed of 160 km per hour. The project started in Dec. 2016 and is scheduled to be completed and open to traffic in December 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]

The China Railway Kunming Group Co., Ltd. said on Sunday that over 90 percent of the bridges and over 96 percent of the tunnels on the Yuxi-Mohan section, in the Chinese section of the China-Laos Railway, have been completed.

A total of 6.9 billion yuan (about 1 billion U.S. dollars) has been invested in building the Yuxi-Mohan section this year, accounting for 73.6 percent of the annual plan, the company said.

A daily average of 25,000 construction workers are working on the section. The Chinese section is scheduled to become operational simultaneously with the Boten-Vientiane section in Laos by the end of 2021.

The cross-border railway is a major project built under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.