SHENZHEN travelers will have another choice when planning a rail trip to Europe in the future if a proposed railway connecting Shenzhen and Rotterdam in the Netherlands is built.

A seminar will be held in Kunming on Thursday to discuss the development of an intercontinental rail link between South China and Europe.

The line will travel through 21 countries including Myanmar, India and Turkey, and cover more than 15,150 km, some 3,000 km shorter than the sea route.

If constructed, the railway will be the third linking Asia and Europe.

The seminar is co-organized by the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences and the provincial development and reform commission.

Ren Jia, the academy's deputy director, said: "The idea to build such a rail link was first proposed in the 1990s, but this will be the first time a full-scale seminar has been held to discuss the subject."

Currently, there are two transcontinental railways: The Euro-Asian rail link, which runs 13,000 km from Vladivostok in Russia to Rotterdam, and the 10,900-km New Euro-Asian Continental Bridge, which runs from Lianyungang in Jiangsu Province to Rotterdam.

The proposed third route will further boost the already flourishing trade ties between China and Europe and Central Asian countries, experts said.

The value of Sino-EU trade exceeded US$256 billion in the first three quarters of the year, up 27.8 percent year on year.

The railway will also provide an impetus for the development of hinterland provinces in the southwest of the country, Ren said.

(SD-Agencies)