Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

A CHINA Railway Express train, carrying freight worth nearly US$8 million in 41 containers, left Yantian container port at 10:38 a.m. yesterday, marking a new overland railway connection between Shenzhen and several major cities along the Belt and Road.

The train will pass through Alashankou City in China’s Xinjiang, Dostyk of Kazakhstan, Moscow of Russia, and arrive in Minsk of Belarus, covering 9,900 kilometers in 13 days and sending products made in Shenzhen and other Pearl River Delta cities such as mobile phones, printers, and household appliances to consumers in Europe.

“During the initial operation stage, the train will run weekly, and in June the railway connection will be further extended to Hamburg of Germany,” said Li Wenhai, vice director of the Freight Center of Guangzhou Railway Group Corp., prior to an inauguration ceremony yesterday.

The operator will consider increasing the frequency of shipments once freight supply becomes stable. Starting in September, the operator will operate two trains for export freight and one train for import freight each week. On the return trip, the train will carry agricultural produces, equipment and industrial materials made in European countries to Shenzhen and other Pearl River Delta cities.

The new project is being implemented within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative with the aim of bolstering trade relations and connections between exporters and importers in the region.

Shenzhen Vice Mayor Chen Biao said that the rail link would help integrate the freight resources of Pearl River Delta cities and transshipment freight from ASEAN members and the Taiwan region, as well as make full use of Shenzhen’s multimodal network to enhance its competitiveness as a multimodal transport hub in Asia.

“Huaqiangbei is the focal point of the world’s electronic products and the new rail link will stimulate the export of electronic products from Shenzhen,” said Li.

Compared with air and marine services, overland rail service is competitive both in cost and time.

“The logistics cost using rail is one-fifth compared to that of air service and the time spent is only one quarter compared to that of marine service. It is time efficient and cost competitive,” said Zhang Chunhua, chairman of China Brilliant Group, one of the operators.

After seeing off the train, Igor Shilov, first deputy head of Belarusian Railways, said that the new railway connection became possible thanks to tight cooperation between the railway administrations of China, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan over the past year as they worked out innovative solutions and created a multimodal logistics hub for South China and East Asia.

“Belarusian Railways considers the development of freight transportation by container trains to and from China as a strategic and promising area,” said Shilov.

In January-April 2017 as many as 65,600 containers full of cargo were transported between the European Union and China via Belarus using fast container trains, 140 percent more than during the same period last year.

Shenzhen is the 29th city in China to open express freight train service to Europe. Statistics from China Railway show that more than 1,000 trains have been operating between China and the European Union so far this year. China Railway Express train network now covers 29 cities in 11 European countries.

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