CHONGQING — Southwest China's Chongqing municipality saw robust land-sea freight transport in the first quarter amid rapid network expansion, according to local authorities.

A total of 19,588 twenty-foot equivalent units of cargo were transported via the domestic section of a land-sea freight route from Chongqing to overseas destinations in the first quarter, a notable year-on-year increase of 130 percent, according to the route's logistics and operating center.

The cargo was worth a total of 2.43 billion yuan (about $374.23 million), a surge of 117 percent compared to the same period last year.

By the end of March, land-sea freight trains from Chongqing had made a total of 3,270 trips since the route opened in 2017.

The route is part of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a trade and logistics passage jointly built by Singapore and provincial-level regions of western China. Chongqing is one of the corridor's centers of operation. All trains via the route pass through port transits in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.