Chongqing- The New International Land-sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC) is an important economic corridor for China-ASEAN trade, said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning at a regular press conference on September 30. 

The 20,000th sea-rail intermodal train of ILSTC arrived at Tuanjiecun Station in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on August 29, loaded with Vietnamese trunkings, calcium carbonate, and other goods. 

The New International Land-sea Trade Corridor is an important artery that covers all the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in western China and connects the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Eurasian continent.

Since running the first sea-rail intermodal train of the ILSTC, the number of trips by this train service has risen at an accelerated pace. The service ran its first 10,000 trips over 1,461 days, while it took the service only 487 days for its second 10,000 trips.

During the first half of this year, 2,705 trips were made, transporting 269,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of goods, a year-on-year increase of 112% and 319%, respectively.

Today, this corridor goes through 111 stations in 59 cities in 16 Chinese provinces. It connects seamlessly with the China Railway Express to Europe and reaches 335 ports in 113 countries and regions worldwide. Its cargo variety has increased from several dozen in the beginning to 640 categories today.

"The ILSTC provides a new engine for Belt and Road cooperation. It is a vivid illustration of China's commitment to a higher level of opening-up," said Mao. "We believe this corridor, which signifies openness, cooperation, and common development, will continue to bring more development opportunities for China and other regional countries."

The ILSTC has significantly improved the efficiency and reduced the cost of international logistics, which benefits China, ASEAN, and other Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) members.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the sea-rail intermodal transport train's opening up the ILSTC.

During the last five years, the ILSTC effectively coordinates the domestic and international markets to promote the industry's rational layout, transformation, and upgrading. The logistics, business, information, and capital are gathered to help the deep integration of transportation, logistics, and economic development along the route. 

As one of the corridor's initiators, Chongqing serves as the operation and organization center of ILSTC. Three ways of logistics organizations were formed to expand the goods' source and scale, including international rail-sea, railroad intermodal, and cross-border road transport. 

Thanks to the ILSTC, the special products of Chongqing districts and counties go overseas, ranging from spare parts and chemical raw materials to daily-use department stores and agricultural products. This April, 3,000 tons of Zhongxian oranges were exported to ASEAN in batches, which is currently the largest fresh fruit export from Chongqing. 

From January to August this year, Chongqing transported 93,494 TEUs via ILSTC, up 31.17% yearly. The goods value exceeded 16.9 billion yuan (about 2.37 billion U.S. dollars), up 47,73% year-on-year, data shows.