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China-Europe Freight Train Adds New Route to Belgium, Bringing it to a Total of 11 Routes, to 37 Countries Across Eurasia

October 10, 2019

 

China-Europe freight train, connecting the City of Yiwu, in Zhejiang Province, with 37 Eurosian countries, Oct 9, 2019

China-Europe freight train adds new route to Belgium

Editor: ZX  

HANGZHOU, Oct. 9, 2019 (Xinhua) --

The eastern Chinese city of Yiwu, home to the world's leading small commodities market, opened a new freight train route to Belgium's Liege on Wednesday.

Loaded with 82 standard containers of commodities, the train is projected to arrive in Liege in about 20 days and runs twice a week.

After reaching Liege, the parcels can be dispatched to other European countries via eHub, owned by Alibaba's logistics arm Cainiao Network in Liege, and other regional distribution channels. The new route is expected to cut the delivery time from Yiwu to Europe by at least one to two days.

The new service is part of the cooperation between Yiwu City and Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) proposed by Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce behemoth Alibaba.

In June this year, Alibaba signed a cooperation agreement with the government of Yiwu to set up eWTP's global innovation center in the city.

According to the agreement, the two sides will innovate new trade modes in imports and exports, jointly build smart logistics hubs and develop new types of trade financing.

Dubbed as the "World's Supermarket," the city of Yiwu has a dense trading network. Around 15,000 foreign traders from more than 100 countries and regions are stationed in Yiwu, and more than 400,000 foreigners come to the city to do business every year.

The express delivery business volume in Yiwu accounts for about one-fifteenth of the nation's total, while about 40 percent of cross-border parcels transported by Cainiao Network from AliExpress, Alibaba's online global retail marketplace, come from Yiwu and its surrounding areas.

Since the first China-Europe train service launched in Yiwu in November 2014, cargo trains have made nearly 900 journeys and carried more than 70,000 standard containers of goods.

The new service has brought the total China-Europe train routes originating from Yiwu to 11, connecting the city with 37 countries and regions across Eurasia.

China-Europe freight train carries railway construction material to Serbia

 Editor: Yurou

JINAN, Sept. 24, 2019 (Xinhua) --

A freight train loaded with materials and parts for railway construction left Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province for Serbia Tuesday morning, opening a new freight train route linking China and the European country.

The parts and equipment will support the construction of the Hungary-Serbia railway, a 350 km-long electrified mixed passenger-freight railway with a designed maximum speed of 200 km per hour.

Compared with logistics by air or by sea, China-Europe freight train offered a cost-efficient transportation alternative, according to Wang Wei, chairman of the logistics arm under the China Railway Materials Group.

It will take around 25 days for the cargo train to reach the construction site in Belgrade.

Since the debut of the China-Europe freight rail service in 2011, the number of trips made between the two regions skyrocketed from 17 to 6,300 in 2018. The China-Europe rail service is considered a significant part of the Belt and Road Initiative and is expected to boost trade between China and Europe.  

New prospects for China-Finland freight train service discussed in Kouvola

Editor: yan

HELSINKI, Sept. 26, 2019 (Xinhua) --

The possibility that rail transport offers to the shipments of salmon from Norway via Finland to China was one of the new topics discussed at the fourth Railforum conference in Kouvola, southeastern Finland on Thursday.

Kouvola is a rail junction that has become the Finnish starting point for rail transit to Xi'an, northwestern China.

Ola Strand, CEO of Norwegian company BluWrap, has developed a package that can keep salmon fresh for as long as 30 days. He told newspaper Kouvolan Sanomat that "tons of salmon" could be on the way in the near future.

At the moment, some 30,000 tons of Norwegian salmon is airfreighted to China, Strand said. He underlined to Kouvolan Sanomat that the cost of rail transport is 80 percent less than by air.

Hannu Makinen, director general of Finnish Customs, said at the seminar in Kouvola that the Finnish authorities will do their best to get the required permits for transporting food products on the train.

Discussing the competitive edge of the Kouvola-Xi'an route, Makinen said that the railroad connection from China to Western Europe is busy with high usage rate, "so this northern route is a potential alternative."

New China-Europe freight train route launched in SW China

Editor: huaxia

CHENGDU, Sept. 8, 2019 (Xinhua) --

A freight train route linking the city of Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, and Wroclaw of Poland has been launched, according to local authorities.

In recent years, Chengdu has opened freight train services to 26 cities outside China, which has made a great contribution to the city's foreign trade, said Zeng Yi, a staff member with Chengdu International Railway Port, the operator of the train route.

The first train on this route, which was launched on Friday, was loaded with electric products such as displays and electrodes. "Thanks to these train routes, we are promoting cooperation with many electronic companies including Dell, Lenovo, TCL, Konka and more," said Zeng.

Located in the southwest of Poland, Wroclaw is the fourth largest city in the country. It is also the second-largest financial center in Poland after Warsaw, the country's capital.  

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