Since the framework agreement for China's western land-sea corridor was signed in October 2019, local regions have enjoyed improvements in a variety of sectors. 

From southwest China's Chongqing and Guiyang to south China's Nanning — all three key cities along the new corridor have enjoyed the region's rapid development and changing landscape.

The western land-sea corridor gives full play to the unique regional advantages of the western areas and creates new strategic anchors for their opening-up and development. It also forms a key corridor connecting the Silk Road Economic Belt, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. 

In Chongqing, the first China-Europe freight train service started in March 2011. It was previously known as the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe International Railway. The railway starts in Chongqing International Logistics Park in southwest China before heading to Europe. The Western New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor freight train service also starts there. 

The railway aims to build better transportation capacity and world-class customs clearance and logistics services. The new route includes a network of railways, roads and air connections, with Chongqing serving as the key logistics hub. 

"We didn't have many choices before when we had to transport goods to South Asia. Taking automobile transportation would mean much higher costs, while river-and-ocean intermodal shipping would take much more time. Now the new freight train service acts as an efficient option both for time and cost," said Jia Jun, head of field operations at the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor Operation Co.

Relying on the new corridor's convenient route to the sea, imported seafood has increasingly become local customers' daily meal. In Guiyang's tax-bonded G7 square, the fresh high-quality products have already won customers' hearts. 

The ASEAN cold-chain distribution center also set up a branch in Guiyang in August. Since then, seafood imported from Southeast Asia only takes about ten hours to arrive in Guiyang's shopping mall. 

"Now we rely on cold chain carriers for transportation. If the high-speed railway connecting Guiyang and Nanning could be finished in two years, we could further reduce the time," said He Hong, general manager at the Guiyang Tax-bonded G7 Square.

Construction on the Guiyang and Nanning High-speed Railway began in December 2016 and is expected to open at the end of 2023. It will be the first high-speed railway with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour in the autonomous region.  

"When the line opens, travel time between the capitals will be reduced to two and a half hours from the current time of more than five hours," said Zhang Lei, chief engineer of Guiyang and Nanning High-speed Railway, China Railway First Group.