Ground travel between southwest China and Laos is about to get much easier and cheaper. Tickets for the China-Laos Railway are now available as it begun operations on Friday. The high-speed, electric rail stretches from Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan Province to the Lao capital of Vientiane. It is a project of the Belt and Road Initiative. The railway has a designed speed of 160 kilometers per hour. It railway stretches over 1,000 kilometers and took 5 years to build. Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith highlighted the railway when talking about the country's economic achievements.