BEIJING — China's rail cargo volume, a key indicator of economic activities, rose 5.5 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2022, said the China State Railway Group Co Ltd (China Railway) on July 2.

A total of 1.95 billion metric tons of cargo was transported through China's railways during this period, 102 million tons more than that in the same period last year, according to the company.

Coal used for power generation carried via railways totaled 690 million tons, up 9.1 percent year-on-year.

During the first half of the year, the number of China-Europe freight train trips rose 2 percent year-on-year to 7,473. The trains carried 720,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers, up 2.6 percent from a year earlier.