BEIJING: When it was launched in 2017, the China-Vietnam freight train service departing from south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region saw fewer than five trains running per month. However, last month alone, a record 1,922 twenty-foot equivalent unit, or TEU, containers of goods were shipped on the trains, surpassing the total shipment volume for the first quarter of 2024.
“I have been in the business of cross-border trade by rail for five years. My feeling is that economic and trade exchanges between China and Vietnam are much more active this year,” said Yang Bo, a logistics director of a freight company in Guangxi.
China is ready to work with Vietnam to accelerate the “hard connectivity” of railway, expressway and port infrastructure, enhance the “soft connectivity” of smart customs, and jointly build a secure and stable industrial and supply chain, said Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks during talks with To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and Vietnamese president, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
At the critical stage of national development and revitalization, Xi stressed, China and Vietnam should, under the direction of the vision of building a community with a shared future, consolidate the development pattern featuring six aspects: higher political mutual trust, more solid security cooperation, deeper practical cooperation, stronger public support, closer multilateral coordination and cooperation, and better management and resolution of differences.
Lam said his party and government will, in accordance with the six major goals, deepen the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, and advance the building of a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance between the two countries.
China and Vietnam announced the building of the community in December 2023. Lam is paying a three-day state visit to China, his first overseas trip after taking office as general secretary of the CPV Central Committee earlier this month.
This fully reflects the great importance Lam attaches to the relations between the two parties and the two countries, as well as the high level and strategic nature of China-Vietnam relations, Xi said. –The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
