Belt and Road Initiative widens China-ASEAN cooperation

NANNING - In a few years, former Deputy Prime Minister of Laos Somsavat Lengsavad envisions that people from the landlocked country at the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula will be able to travel to China by high-speed train.

As of July, more than a third of the 414-kilometer network linking the two countries has been built. It is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2021.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is changing the geographic status of Laos and boosting infrastructural construction along the railway," Somsavat said at the China-ASEAN Expo in the southern Chinese city of Nanning.