SHENZHEN, April 3 -- A ceremony was held on Monday for the opening of a new cargo air route linking the southern Chinese metropolis Shenzhen to Sao Paulo of Brazil, which is expected to stimulate the e-commerce trade between the two countries.

The air route was launched by the Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport and Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, with two flights weekly conducted by Atlas Air's Boeing 747 all-cargo aircraft.

The maiden flight carrying 100 tonnes of e-commerce products took off from the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Sunday, loading specialty e-commerce products in Shenzhen.

According to the airport, the products sold by cross-border businesses in Shenzhen and its surrounding cities can be delivered to Brazilian consumers "in more than a week."

Since the beginning of this year, the Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport has cooperated with airlines and logistics operators to open new cross-border air routes, with the volume of air transportation of cross-border products up by 70 percent year on year, said the airport.

The bilateral trade between China and Brazil reached 171.49 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 4.9 percent, according to the statistics from China's General Administration of Customs.