Tracking their future career

Laotian engineering students and railway interns team up with their Chinese peers to document and promote the soon-to-be completed China-Laos rail project, Xing Yi reports.

Given that Laos currently has just one 3.5-kilometer rail route in operation, it is difficult for many of the country's natives, like Likhamsouyiaseng Tong, to imagine a service that connects the capital city of Vientiane with China.

"I used to ask myself: Will such a railway appear? If yes, when?" says Tong, who started studying at the Shanghai Institute of Technology two years ago. "But my doubts are gone now that the China-Laos railway is about to open."

All 67 communication towers along the China-Laos railway were completed in May, and work on the longest bridge along the route, the 7.53 km Phonethong Bridge, finished in June, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The construction of the project started in December 2016 and operation of the railway is slated to start in December. The railway will reduce the travel time between Vientiane and the border station of Boten from a two-day drive to a three-hour train journey.

Tong is one of the 25 students from Souphanouvong University in Laos who are currently studying engineering at the Shanghai institute to become railway experts. Eight of them are currently working as interns in companies that are involved in the construction of the railway.

Even before the railway is able to facilitate exchanges between the two countries, the students themselves have already been doing so.

On June 24, the Belt and Road Lancang-Mekong Railway Connectivity Center was co-founded by the Shanghai Institute of Technology, the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Souphanouvong University, China Railway Academy Co and the China Railway 24th Bureau Group Shanghai Railway Co.