A train carrying 40 refrigerated containers bound for Kunming in Southwest China’s Yunnan province embarked on its maiden trip from the Xiajia cold chain logistics base in Harbin, provincial capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province on March 30.

The containers, filled with french fries, were transferred to the logistics base through the road and railway network linking it to other regions in Heilongjiang province, marking the opening of the largest cold chain transportation service from Heilongjiang to the inland provinces.

Xiajia cold chain logistics base is located at Wanggang Town, Harbin. It covers an area of 180,000 square meters and started construction in 2016.

The logistics base has cold storage warehouses, room temperature warehouses, a container yard and two railway sidings, with an annual throughput of 250,000 metric tons. It has complete functions of storage, market distribution and delivery for food such as vegetables, fruit, seafood and butter.

Meanwhile, the logistics base has adopted an intelligent and informationized management system to enable the fast search of classified goods. It has also installed a total of 37 monitors at its warehouses and container yard to ensure the safety of goods.

The operations of the logistics base will help Heilongjiang sell its milk and highly- processed products of corn and potatoes to provinces in the south; and bring fresh fruit and seafood from southeastern coastal areas back to the Harbin market.

In addition, the logistics center is scheduled to open cold chain trains bound for Russia, South Korea and Japan through inland and coastal ports of Suifenhe, Manzhouli, Dandong, Dalian and Yingkou to lower logistics costs and improve efficiency.

The State Council, China's cabinet, published guidelines on the development of a cold chain logistics framework in April 2017, underscoring the importance of food safety and consumption upgrades. The document requires a significant increase in the use of cold chain transportation for fresh farm produce and perishable foods by 2020.