China's railways report steady passenger, cargo growth in first 10 months

BEIJING - China's railway networks registered steady expansion in passenger and cargo transport in the first 10 months of the year, official data showed.

A total of 3.13 billion passenger trips were made during the January-October period, up 8.9 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Transport (MOT).

The country's railways carried 3.60 billion tons of cargo from January to October, up 6.5 percent from the same period last year.

China aims to increase its total railway cargo volume by 30 percent from 2017 levels to reach about 4.8 billion tons in 2020.

Freight turnover operated by the country's railways rose 3.7 percent year-on-year to 2.47 trillion ton-kilometers in the first 10 months, said the MOT.

In October alone, the railways operated 319.03 million passenger trips while transporting 395.37 million tons of cargo, reporting a yearly growth of 4.7 percent and 9.4 percent, respectively.