China will soon send its first shipment of domestically produced light rail trains to Turkey, state media said on Sunday, even as a deadly high-speed train crash in late July threatens to undermine the country's plans to export its train technology.

The light rail trains, manufactured by China's CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co Ltd will go into service in Izmir, Turkey's third-largest city, the People's Daily said. They will roll off assembly lines this week, it added.

The paper quoted Xu Zongxiang, the company's general manager, as saying that the company sees the Turkish light rail project as its first step into the European market, and it is confident that it will be able to provide high-tech railway technologies and services to other countries and regions.

CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co Ltd is a unit of the Hong Kong-listed CSR Corporation Limited.