The Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway (HSR) in Indonesia marked its 100th day of operation on Wednesday, having handled a total of 1.45 million passenger trips. The daily seat occupancy rate reached a peak of 99.6 percent, maintaining a consistently high level of passenger flows.

The number of daily trips has increased from 14 at first to 40 on weekdays and 48 on weekends. During the first 100 days, the service ran 3,487 trips, and the highest number of passengers in a single day reached 21,537, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing an official from China Railway International.

Septian Hario Seto, a deputy minister of Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs, said in an interview with Xinhua that the railway has revolutionized travel between Jakarta and Bandung. He expressed eagerness to extend cooperation with China and expand the high-speed railway from Jakarta to Surabaya via Yogyakarta.

The Jakarta-Bandung HSR is a flagship project jointly constructed by China and Indonesia under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It marked the first time that Chinese HSR technology was implemented in an all-round way abroad, with all elements and the whole industry chain.

Since it began operation in October 2023, the Jakarta-Bandung HSR has facilitated travel by local people and more importantly stimulated the development of the economy along its route. It has generated jobs and boosted the vitality of the local economy, experts said.

Economic development zones have been built around major stations along the line, which are new economic growth points and are expected to promote broader local economic development, Zhou Shixin, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday.

In the process of jointly promoting the BRI, China and Indonesia have collaborated to create a series of high-quality infrastructure projects, including power stations, roads and bridges, dams and telecommunications facilities.

Taking the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project as an example, more than 75 percent of the services and procurement for the project are sourced locally in Indonesia. This has significantly bolstered the local supply chain and employment, particularly in the training of thousands of qualified technical personnel, according to media reports.

Not only with Indonesia but also with many other Southeast Asian countries, China has carried out similar flagship collaborative projects. Examples include the China-Laos Railway and the high-speed highway in Cambodia, Zhou said.

These projects highlight the confidence that Southeast Asian countries place in China's technical expertise and financing capabilities in infrastructure development. China has emerged as their optimal choice for collaboration in these projects, Zhou said.

China will persist in driving the high-quality development of the BRI and collaborating on more infrastructure projects, particularly those involving cross-regional transportation, Song Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Such large-scale projects are crucial for unlocking development bottlenecks, which are particularly prominent in developing countries, Song said.

From the perspective of financing, developed countries have shown limited interest or capacity in terms of investing in such projects. China is poised to be one of the few providers of cross-regional infrastructure financing, contributing more such public goods in the form of infrastructure to the world, Song noted.

"It will play a pivotal role in propelling the overall growth of developing countries and fostering regional economic and trade integration," she said.

As the world is entering a new period of turbulence and change, more people realize the epochal value and global significance of the BRI. The initiative promotes connectivity instead of decoupling or division, and pursues win-win cooperation instead of confrontation, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular press conference in Beijing on Thursday.

China is willing to deepen international cooperation under the BRI with countries around the world, building more "Happy Roads" that benefit the development of all countries, and making greater contributions to achieving a world of peaceful development, mutually beneficial cooperation and common prosperity, Wang said.

China and Thailand signed a mutual visa exemption agreement in Bangkok, Thailand on Sunday, which will take effect on March 1 and is expected to propel faster recovery of Thai tourism to pre-pandemic levels.

After the announcement of reciprocal visa exemption agreement, on Trip.com platform, the volume for Thai-related searches jumped 7-fold from the previous day, including search for air flights and Thai hotels.

The most searched Thai destinations by Chinese tourists include Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand predicts that, in 2024, the number of Chinese visitors will rank above those from other countries. Visitors from China are expected to reach 8 million, according to media reports, reaching 73 percent of the levels seen in 2019.

Thailand has unilaterally granted a 5-month visa-free stay to Chinese visitors from September 25, 2023 until February 29, 2024. The news on Sunday indicates that the unilateral visa-free arrangement will seamlessly transition into reciprocal visa waiver.

The visa waiver agreement has been anticipated for some period, and it has undergone a transition from temporary to permanent arrangement now, Yang Jinsong, an expert with the China Tourism Academy, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Yang noted that "the latest visa waiver deal holds great significance for Chinese tourists traveling to Thailand, considering China was Thailand's largest source of tourists before the pandemic." It will accelerate the recovery of Thai tourism industry, the expert said.

In 2023, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand was around 3.5 million, representing a recovery to 31 percent of the levels seen in 2019, according to media reports.

On online travel platforms, Thailand is the most popular destination for Chinese tourists traveling overseas during the upcoming Spring Festival holidays, according to a recent report Qunar sent to the Global Times.

Tongcheng Travel said that the popular destinations for outbound travel during the coming holidays included Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket.

"Visa exemptions indeed contribute to making a destination more appealing to tourists from both sides," Yang said, predicting an even faster recovery for Thai tourism.

However, achieving a complete return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024 may not be entirely feasible, and could take more time, Yang said.

Thailand announced last September its decision to allow visa-free entry for Chinese tourists from September 25 until the end of February 2024 this year, in alignment with the country's prime minister's commitment to enhancing Thailand's economy through tourism.

Since the second half of 2023, there has been growing momentum in visa-free arrangements between China and Southeast Asian countries.

China and Singapore on Thursday agreed on mutual visa exemption, effective on February 9, 2024. Chinese and Singaporean citizens holding ordinary passports will be allowed to enter and stay in each other's countries visa-free for up to 30 day.

With the visa exemption policies, personnel exchanges between China and Southeast Asian countries may surge. It is anticipated that more Chinese sightseers will visit Southeast Asia, whose tourism sector will again enter a "golden age," analysts said.