By CGTN's Wang Xuejing

With air horns blasting, a freight train departed at 6 p.m. local time (1000GMT) on Friday from a logistics center in Urumqi, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, bound for Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. 

The 45-compartment train, loaded with production equipment and garments, will reach Kazakhstan via Xinjiang’s land port city of Horgos. The whole journey will last around 40 hours, far less than the time before the new trade route came into operation.

As a core city of the Belt and Road Initiative, Urumqi set up the logistics center to provide one-stop services for shipments. Since the first train was launched in May 2016, the city has handled the passage of 401 freight trains from China to Europe and Central Asia. 

The hub initially operated one train a week, but that has been developed into a daily service, with two trains per day.

"In the future, we will open more eastbound routes so as to bring more goods to the ASEAN countries," deputy manager of Xinjiang International Logistic Company Xiao Wei said to the media.

Encouraged by the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, China has launched more than 50 trade routes connecting it with countries in central Asia and Europe to boost trade and strengthen connectivity.