Editor's note: On the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), let's take the railways in BRI partner countries and explore the projects as well as the local sights and sounds. In this article of the "Railways Along the Belt and Road" series, we focus on China-Laos Railway, the China-Thailand Railway under construction and regional railway interconnection. 

Laos, the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia, now has a fast lane to the rest of the region.

For many decades, a 300-kilometer journey from Vientiane, capital city of Laos, to its second largest city of Luang Prabang took over 12 hours. Driving is not easy, as most of the roads, bridges and tunnels are in mountainous areas.

But since the launch of the China-Laos Railway in December 2021, people have been able to book tickets on their smartphones and travel by high-speed train all the way from Vientiane to China's southwestern city of Kunming, a metropolis some 1,035 kilometers away, in less than 10 hours. 

In Laos, a country with few railways, the China-Laos Railway is definitely a game-changer. With a maximum operating speed of 160 km per hour, the railway is not only a way out of poverty for people there, but also a bridge helping transform Laos into a land-linked regional hub that is fully integrated in the global market.

Why's it so important? According to a World Bank empirical estimation published in 2020, the China-Laos Railway could reduce domestic transport costs by 20-40 percent in Laos, and reduce cross-border transport costs between China's Kunming and Laos' Vientiane by 40-50 percent, representing a reduction of about $30 per tonne. That means a lot for a country with per capita GDP of $2,593 in 2020. 

Thanks to the newly laid foundation of greatly enhanced and more cost-effective transportation and logistics infrastructure, China-Laos rail freight transport has seen significant expansion in 2023. In the first eight months, cargo transportation on the China-Laos Railway increased by 138 percent year on year, according to the Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd. 

Many Southeast Asian countries, especially Thailand, have realized the benefits and huge potential brought by the railway. And that's why Thai shipments of tropical fruits like durians, with a higher grade of maturity, to China have surged after the railway introduced cold-chain transportation. Thailand is also accelerating an upgrade of its railway network to further connect with the China-Laos Railway. 

In 2022, the first super-large bridge of the first phase of the China-Thailand high-speed railway project was completed and the full construction stage has begun. The first section, linking the Thai capital of Bangkok with Nakhon Ratchasima province, is expected to shorten the travel time from more than four hours to a little over one hour. 

The second section will go further northeast to the border with Laos. When completed, the China-Thailand railway will take trains from Bangkok to the border town of Nong Khai, where a bridge will connect it with the China-Laos Railway. People will then be able to travel by bullet train from Thailand, through Laos, to China.

Just as the China-Laos Railway has transformed the landlocked country to an important logistics corridor between China and Southeast Asia, clean energy cooperation between China and Laos has helped the country's mountainous areas to fully utilize hydropower potential and boost electricity export.

Chinese investment in the Nam Ou River cascade hydropower project has not only eased severe power shortages in Laos, but also transformed the country into a "battery of Southeast Asia" by exporting clean energy to neighboring booming economies. Local media reports suggest electricity exports have become an important driver of the Laos economy and electricity has contributed to over 10 percent of Lao GDP and 30 percent of its exports for many years.

The BRI continues to add vitality to the regional economic boom. 

In July 2023, the "China-Laos Railway + China-Europe Railway Express" model was launched, making a railway logistics service that connects Southeast Asia and Europe in 15 days via China possible. For the first time, the China-Laos Railway has been connected with the China-Europe Railway Express for a regular rail service. 

At the same time, the China-Laos Railway is accelerating connections with the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a trade and logistics passage jointly built by ASEAN countries and provincial-level regions of western China.