BEIJING (Xinhua) — Gansu and Tashkent have connected the north-western province of China with a new China-Europe multimodal transport route.

As part of the China-Europe international rail projects, a first cargo train carrying household appliances has left Lanzhou, the administrative centre of Gansu Province in northwest China, for Tashkent.

According to the head of the management committee of the Gansu International Land Port in Lanzhou, Luo Zhe, this is the first train in China, using a mixed rail and road transport route between China and Europe.

The train was loaded with cargo from China’s southern Guangdong province of 230 tons with a total value of $2.6 mln. It will be shipped to Kashgar in the Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region of northwest China by train, where it will be loaded onto trucks for transport by road to Osh (Kyrgyzstan), and then delivered to Tashkent by rail.

The total length of the train journey will be about 4,380 km and the travel time is 7-10 days, nearly 5 days less than other routes.

It is expected that 525 tonnes of cotton imported from Uzbekistan will be delivered on the return journey.

China-Europe international rail services, launched in 2011, are seen as an essential component of the so-called Belt and Road Initiative, aimed at boosting trade with China.