Hainan Airlines will open a direct flight between Shenzhen and Rome, Italy, on May 30.

This will be the third intercontinental flight to Rome operated by Hainan Airlines following the routes from Haikou in Hainan Province and Xi’an in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

It will become the 50th international route linking Shenzhen with the world.

The flight, HU437, will operate every Thursday and Sunday.

It is scheduled to leave from Shenzhen at 1:30 a.m. and will arrive in the Italian capital at 8:10 a.m. The return flight, HU438, leaves Rome at 11:25 a.m. and arrives in Shenzhen at 5:20 a.m. the following day.

The year 2019 is the 15th anniversary of the establishment of a comprehensive strategic relationship between China and Italy. Italy, one of China’s key partners under the Belt and Road Initiative, signed an MoU on Saturday during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to become the first G7 country to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Xi and Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte endorsed a global infrastructure-building plan with 29 separate sections of the MoU signed by members of the both governments.

Hainan Airlines has opened a dozen intercontinental flights out of Shenzhen in the past two years, and more than 100 international routes linking China with the other countries under the Belt and Road Initiative.