BEIJING — The number of China-Europe freight trains hit 1,165 in January, up 66 percent year-on-year, data from the China State Railway Group Co Ltd showed.

This was the ninth straight month that China-Europe freight train trips exceeded 1,000, according to the company.

The freight trains carried 109,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers of goods last month, surging 73 percent from a year earlier.

The freight trains have played a crucial role in stabilizing the international logistics supply chain, promoting Sino-European trade and helping with the global fight against the COVID-19 epidemic.

Some 9.97 million pieces of anti-epidemic supplies, weighing 80,000 metric tons, have been sent to European countries including Germany, Poland and Belgium by the trains since the epidemic outbreak, the company said.