The home appliances made in Zhanjiang's Lianjiang county, South China's Guangdong province have experienced considerable market growth across China, thanks to special train routes opened last November, according to Chen Guibo, general manager of the Zhanjiang-based NIMES Electrical Co.

Chen made his comments after 3,000 electric rice cookers and kettles from his company were transported via the Lianjiang - Chengdu train route, all the way to Urumqi a week later.

Widely known as the hometown of home appliances in China, Lianjiang county has more than 600 home appliance enterprises, contributing an annual output close to 200 million yuan ($30.92 million).

However before the special train routes, sales growth was slow due to high costs and frequent transport delays throughout the country.

The Lianjing county government opened the special train route last November, in cooperation with numerous railway authorities and more than 100 e-commerce businesses including Chinese e-commerce giant, JD.

The train takes approximately 72 hours to reach China's Southwestern city of Chengdu, and can hold 15 to 20 containers at one time.

"The transportation cost of one rice cooker is 15 yuan ($2.31) to Beijing through expressways and waterways but the cost on the special train is reduced to only nine yuan per rice cooker. We can save about 40 percent of the total cost for our company," said Chen.

The Nanning railway bureau has established two connection stations at the Lianjiang Industrial Park, providing direct transportation routes for home appliances to Chengdu and Kunming.

As of the end of March this year, 256,000 home appliance units have been transported by the bureau from Lianjiang to places across China, considerably improving the brand awareness of Lianjiang-made home appliances in China's Southwestern region.

Railway transportation is safe and convenient, so it is very popular among local home appliance enterprises in Lianjiang, said Chen, stressing that the Lianjiang home appliance special train routes can reach to nearly every train station in China.

Currently, a dozen special train routes have been opened, with hundreds of carriages full of Lianjiang-made home appliances reaching places across the country on a daily basis. Experts say that the new transportation routes will provide a bigger market for Lianjiang's home appliance industry.