The land checkpoint of Erenhot in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region saw an increase in throughput with Mongolia in the first two months, despite measures taken to reduce gatherings to contain the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19.

The volume of imports and exports through the customs reached 2.28 million tons in the period, up 25.9 percent year on year. Among them, imports accounted for more than 90 percent of the total, up over a quarter year on year, while exports also saw an increase of 12.6 percent year on year, according to the Erenhot customs.

The customs attributed the surge to the China-Europe freight train services importing Mongolian commodities and livestock products, and exporting Chinese fruits, vegetables as well as mechanical and electrical products. 

As of March 13, the city had seen 30,000 TEUs of imported and exported goods since the start of this year, up 61.3 percent year on year.

The customs set up a green channel for fruit and vegetable exports to ensure the transport efficiency of fresh farm produce. In the first two months, the export volume of fruits and vegetables through Erenhot reached 14,000 tons, up five percent year on year, and the export value grew 15.9 percent year on year to 17 million yuan (about 2.39 million U.S. dollars).

Since the beginning of March, Erenhot has seen Chinese exports of three million face masks to Mongolia. On March 25, China donated a batch of nucleic acid detection kits, medical masks and disposable medical protective clothing through the customs to assist Mongolia's pandemic prevention and control.