Guangxi with its road and rail reach becomes hub for China-ASEAN trade

IT has been nearly a decade since China-ASEAN Expo chose Nanning as the base of China-ASEAN trade and the level infrastructure development has made great strides, Xinhua reports.

The Guangxi Autonomous Region's capital city of Nanning is on the banks of Yong River, the chief southern tributary of the Xi River, and lies 30 kilometres below the confluence of the Yu and the Zuo rivers, which provides good route to Guangzhou.

Guangxi region is on the sea coast and borders the ASEAN member state of Vietnam and acts as the gateway for the southwest region and a pivot for the trade between southern China and ASEAN.

In air transport, Guangxi has been operating 12 international flights to eight ASEAN countries including Thailand and Singapore. In 2012, Guangxi refreshed its record by having handled 14.27 million passengers, 960,000 more than in the previous year.

Nanning airport handled seven million passengers in the past year, which was five times of that in 2003. The airport is undergoing expansion towards the throughput target of 164,000 tonnes of cargo and 16 million passengers, for which a new terminal is being built.

At the same time, Guangxi Airport Group is working on launch more international services including to Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore.

In the railway sector, Nanning Railway Bureau started a passenger service from Nanning to Hanoi in January 2009, which makes Nanning the second city that operates international rail passenger service after Beijing. Being the only international railway service between China and ASEAN, the Nanning-Hanoi railway has moved over 130,000 travellers since opening for traffic.

Guangxi is busily increasing railway ties with ASEAN during recent years. In December last year, a new railway from Debao to Sino-Vietnamese border city Jingxi started operation, which is said to be able to boost trade with Vietnam.

In the road sector, Guangxi has an expressway linking Nanning to Sino-Vietnamese border checkpoint Youyi operating since 2005, which joins with a Vietnamese Highway. In 2009, Guangxi started building two expressways that connect Vietnam's road network, which are the Baise-Jingxi and the Jingxi-Napo Expressway.

In the same year, Guangxi also broke ground on two new expressways, the Sanjiang-Liuzhou and Yangshuo-Luzhai Railway. At the end of last year, a significant section of the China-ASEAN road, the Qinzhou-Chongzuo expressway, opened to traffic.

In August 2012, a cross-border transportation service from Nanning to Hanoi was launched. Since then, Guangxi has started 11 of such cross-border cargo and passenger transportation service. Twenty-eight such international roads have received approval by the government.

Shipping services between Guangxi and ASEAN countries are also developing. Guangxi is now operating over 30 container shipping services from its Beibu Gulf port cluster, offering over 50 sailings per week, including the Fangchenggang-Hong Kong-Shekou-Haiphong service, the Fangchenggang-Port Klang-Singapore-Bangkok service and the service linking Singapore, Port Klang and Haiphong.