(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-10-27 09:41

A seminar will be held in Kunming on Thursday to discuss the development of an intercontinental rail link between South China and Europe.

The proposed route will run from Shenzhen in Guangdong to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, according to the draft plan.

The line will travel through 21 countries including Myanmar, India and Turkey, and cover more than 15,150 km, cutting some 3,000 km off the journey between the two ports by sea.

If constructed, the railway will be the third linking Asia and Europe.

The seminar, to be held in the Yunnan capital, has been co-organized by the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences and the provincial development and reform commission.

Ren Jia, the academy's deputy director, said: "The idea to build such a rail link was first proposed in the 1990s, but this will be the first time a full-scale seminar has been held to discuss the subject."

Currently, there are two cross-continental railways: The Euro-Asian rail link, which runs 13,000 km from Vladivostok in Russia to Rotterdam, and the 10,900-km New Euro-Asian Continental Bridge, which runs from Lianyungang in Jiangsu Province to Rotterdam.

The proposed third route will further boost the already flourishing trade ties between China and Europe and Central Asian countries, experts said.

The value of Sino-EU trade exceeded $256 billion in the first three quarters of the year, up 27.8 percent year on year.

The railway will also provide an impetus for the development of hinterland provinces in the southwest of the country, Ren said.

Yunnan, in particular, will benefit from unprecedented development opportunities as the hub for such a key rail link, he said.