NANNING, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- A fleet of six driverless container trucks fully loaded with electronic products hit the road on Friday in Pingxiang, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and drove towards Vietnam via a dedicated passage, marking the official operation of the Chinese section of the Puzhai-Tan Thanh smart port for freight transportation.

The launch ceremony for the cross-border smart port was witnessed by officials from both sides, including representatives from Guangxi and Vietnam's Lang Son province.

Ye Yanyu, deputy general manager of Pingxiang Guomao Technology Co., Ltd., said that a 2.4-kilometer passage has been built to serve as an enclosed route for the driverless vehicles, allowing them to travel directly to the border between China and Vietnam, and to the cargo yard in Vietnam.

The smart-port system leverages advanced technologies including China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, vehicle-mounted positioning technology, and vehicle-road-cloud integrated intelligent networking to create the intelligent operation system that is unmanned, smart and visualized. An intelligent control system seamlessly orchestrates the entire process, enabling automated customs clearance operations around the clock. The daily clearance capacity of the port is expected to reach approximately 2,880 vehicle trips.

Li Shuo, deputy director of Guangxi's commerce department, said the operation of the Chinese section of the smart port marks a significant milestone in the collaborative smart port development between China and Vietnam.

In the first 10 months of this year, the port of Pingxiang recorded foreign trade volume of 200.69 billion yuan (about 28.5 billion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 13.88 percent.

The Puzhai-Tan Thanh smart port with its advantages of improving customs clearance efficiency and reducing trade and logistics costs is poised to inject new momentum into the cross-border trade between China and Vietnam, as well as the wider ASEAN region.