国内英语资讯:China Focus: Economic Corridor to benefit people of China, Myanmar_时事

国内英语资讯:China Focus: Economic Corridor to benefit people of China, Myanmar

KUNMING, Feb. 23 -- At a fruit market in Wanding, Ruili, a county on the China-Myanmar border, workers are transferring watermelons and muskmelons from Myanmar to heavy trucks which will soon leave for Beijing, Shanghai and other cities in China.

"Burmese fruit tastes good and enjoys great popularity among Chinese people," Said Liu Hongfang, a manager of the market. "About 400 Burmese trucks (3,000 tons) of fruit come and go in the market every day."

Thanks to closer cooperation between China and Myanmar, the company has expanded its scale and business, built refrigeration houses in Wanding and worked with locals of Mandalay to grow watermelon.

There are only about 400 km from Mandalay to Myanmar's border town of Muse, next to Ruili in southwest China's Yunnan province, but it would take the truck drivers two days because of the narrow and zigzag roads, according to Liu.

"What's worse, if a traffic accident occurs, the fruit will rot on the road," she added.

Fortunately, Liu's worries will be a thing of the past with the construction of a railway project linking Yunnan with Mandalay, which was proposed in 2017 as part of the plan of building the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor.

Since 2018, progress has been seen in the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor program under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, and the railway project was initiated last year, according to the second China-Myanmar Economic Corridor Forum held on Friday in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan.