Job opportunities

The railway is also significant for Chinese living in remote, closed areas of Yunnan, as it not only opens the door wider to the outside world for trade and business, but also creates job opportunities.

Yi Bofeng, 23, who was born in a mountainous area in Shangjinglong village, Mengla county, Xishuangbanna, said she loves trains because "when they travel at full speed, they bring hope and vitality to cities they pass through".

However, for a long time, Yi's only experience of trains was through television programs. It took more than seven hours for her to travel between Xishuangbanna and Kunming by bus every summer and winter vacation when she studied in the provincial capital.

"Xishuangbanna had no railways, and an air ticket was too expensive," she said. "My parents always said that only if we study hard can 'we walk out of the mountain and see the world'."

Yi, graduated from a college in Kunming, speaks Mandarin, Thai, English and the language of the Dai ethnic group. Like many graduates, she was worried about finding a job last year, but learned that the China Railway Kunming Group Co was recruiting employees who could speak a minority language, in preparation for the new rail line opening.

Now, as a newly recruited attendant on the line, she is busy practicing Laotian, along with emergency response skills.

Her father works for a timber mill, her mother runs a Dai costume workshop, and her younger sister is interning as a nurse. Yi studied at the National University of Laos for five months from September 2019, and has attended local weddings, festivals, and loves to eat Laotian pounded papaya, rice noodles and drink coffee.

"My dream has come true. I can return home more often by train. My mother can sell her clothes to far-flung customers, and I hope to bring my family to tour Laos some day," she added.

The new line also provides a faster, cost-effective transportation solution for international businessmen and women.

Guo Qiang, finance director of the Taibiao Group in Yuxi, Yunnan, which mainly sells solar water heaters to Southeast Asia, said the link will increase logistics efficiency and reduce costs.

"It takes about seven to eight hours to transport our products to Mohan port by road. When the line opens, as Yuxi station is close to our headquarters, we will be able to transport our products much faster," Guo said.

Wang Dekun, chairman of Pu'er Linda Wood Industry Co in Yunnan, said that for a long time, only a single mountainous expressway linked Pu'er to Kunming, resulting in high costs and transportation safety risks.

Last year, it cost about 350 yuan ($54) per cubic meter to transport the company's wood to Laos, but this figure will be reduced to less than 200 yuan per cu m by the new railway. When costs are saved, this significantly increases the company's market competitiveness, he added.

Li Hongming, chairman of the labor union at China Railway Kunming Group, said the construction team working on the line faced serious challenges posed by numerous natural barriers, such as mountains, valleys and rivers.

Bridges and tunnels comprise 87 percent of the line's length in China, while in Laos, this proportion is 62.7 percent, Li said. Difficult terrain and the risk of a geological disaster led to unexpected difficulties in construction, he added.

Chen Lijun, deputy director of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, said that as an important infrastructure project linking China and Laos, the railway will promote economic cooperation and closer people-to-people ties, as well as construction of a shared future for humankind.

Zhu Zhenming, a professor at a research institute affiliated to the academy, said the line will help directly link Laos with markets in West China, share the achievements of China's reform and opening-up, and promote win-win bilateral cooperation.

It will also help China link to Southeast Asian markets and enhance the country's relations with member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Zhu said.