BEIJING -- A total of 2,043.5 km of new railway lines were put into service across China in the first half of the year (H1), said the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) on Wednesday.

During the period, the country's rail cargo volume rose 5.5 percent year on year to about 1.95 billion tonnes, according to the company's H1 financial statement.

In H1, China's railway handled 787 million passenger trips, declining by 42.8 percent due to sporadic COVID-19 flare-ups, said China Railway.

The number of China-Europe freight train trips rose 2 percent year on year to 7,514 in H1. The trains carried 724,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers, up 3 percent from a year earlier.

Rail cargo transport through the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor surged 33 percent to 379,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers, said the company.