(Yicai Global) Sept. 26 -- A new regular train service in China's southwestern municipality of Chongqing now allows cross-border e-commerce firms to import goods by train.

Kaola.com, the cross-border e-commerce platform backed by Netease Inc. [NASDAQ:NTSE], opened its first wagon of goods delivered via the China-Europe train in Chongqing's Lianglu Cuntan Free Trade Port Area today. The new train service is the latest achievement of a tripartite cooperation between Kaola, Yuxinou Chongqing Logistics Co., a leading Chinese cross-border rail operator, and SNCF Logistics, France's national rail company and a major logistics group, online media outlet Pintu reported.

Chinese consumers want foreign products, and the new regular train service will prove an important transport solution for import-export trade, including e-commerce, between China and European countries, as it is cheaper than air freight and faster than sea transport.

The trio signed an agreement at the wagon-opening ceremony to cooperate on full-container load and less-than-container load shipping businesses, work to create rail-road transport channels and develop southwestern European markets and logistics corridors in the north of the continent. Kaola will build more logistics facilities in Chongqing as a distribution center for western regions in a bid to reduce transport time and costs for cross-border e-commerce firms. Yuxinou and SNCF will partner up with Kaola to set a new benchmark for cross-border trade in Chongqing by leveraging their respective logistics channels and resources.

The free trade port is located at the heart of the free trade zone in Chongqing. It has adopted a range of measures to quicker process e-commerce goods at the port, and outranks most other Chinese free trade ports in terms of overall cross-border transport efficiency. It processed some 2.6 million cross-border e-commerce orders in the first seven months of this year, making up nearly 40 percent of the total cross-border e-commerce business in the city. Order volume at the port grew 74 percent compared with the same period last year.

Kaola has 12 overseas warehouses in Germany, the Netherlands, France, the UK, the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Hong Kong.