The first cargo train fully loaded with Thai durian has arrived in China through the new Chinese-Lao railway service.
Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Chalermchai Sri-on said on Sunday the biggest lot of Thai durian in the 2022 crop arrived in China. The shipment consisted of 500 tons of durian fruits in 27 containers and started the Thai-Chinese trade in fruits by train.
The minister said that the export followed a trial shipment of two containers of Thai durian and a container of Thai aromatic coconuts by train to China early this month. The railway export of Thai fruits from Laos to China would expand to mangosteen, longan, rice, natural rubber, cassava, sugar and mangoes, he said.
The export of 500 tons of durian took only about a day and a half from the Vientiane South Station to China’s Mohan border checkpoint. The time was shortened by more than 50% compared with the trial run early this month, Mr Chalermchai said.
Alongkorn Polabutr, advisor to the agriculture minister, said the fruit export was a hybrid of railway and road transport because the durian lot was delivered on trucks from Chanthaburi province across the Thai-Lao border in Nong Khai province, was then loaded onto a train in Vientiane and was transported farther to Mohan in Yunnan.
At least 25 containers of durian from Trat and other eastern provinces would be exported via the Lao-Chinese railway next week, he said.
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