China's rail freight volume up 5.5 pct in H1

A China-Europe freight train is about to depart from the Shenyang East Railway Station in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, June 16, 2022. (Xinhua/Yang Qing)

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- China's rail cargo volume, a key indicator of economic activities, rose 5.5 percent year on year in the first half of 2022, said the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) on Saturday.

A total of 1.95 billion tonnes of cargo was transported through China's railways during this period, 102 million tonnes more than that in the same period last year, according to the company.

Coal used for power generation carried via railways totaled 690 million tonnes, up 9.1 percent year on year.

During the first half of the year, the number of China-Europe freight train trips rose 2 percent year on year to 7,473. The trains carried 720,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers, up 2.6 percent from a year earlier. ■