Express rail links China with Europe
Authorities in Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu, are suggesting the city is poised to become a key logistics hub for markets across Asia and Europe.
Expectations are running high amid the early success of a newly-launched rail service which is sending goods from central Asia and eastern Europe back to China.
The West China Railway Logistics Center in Chengdu is bustling like never before.
Most of the goods processed through the facility are either coming or going along the Chengdu-Europe Express.
The service started moving goods from China in 2013, with stops in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus before hitting its terminus in the city of Lodz of Poland.
Chinese goods including electronic devices, auto parts, shoes, clothing and various other exports head out of the Chengdu station every Saturday, packed in 41 containers.
But starting last month, those containers are now coming back to China filled with European products, many of them perishables.
Izabela Kalinowska is chief representative of the express railway’s Lodz office in Chengdu.
“The goods include agricultural goods, like food and beverages. We have the containers at a controlled temperature, so they can carry goods such as foods that have very quick expiry dates. That’s the advantage of the connection because it just takes 10 days to come to Chengdu.”
It would take 40 days to transport the same products by ocean.
Its this advantage as an inland rail hub which authorities in Chengdu are hoping will turn the city into logistics powerhouse under the “Belt and Road” strategy the Chinese government has laid-out.
Chen Zhongwei, director of the Chengdu Logistics Development Office, says their office is already looking beyond central Asia and Europe.
“We have opened railway traffic with Xiamen, in the hope of bridging East China and Europe. We have also opened traffic with Shenzhen to connect Hong Kong and Macau with Europe. We are planning to open traffic with Kunming, so that Southeast Asia and Europe can be connected as well.”
Logistics officials in Chengdu say their eventual goal is to have trains running between Chengdu on a daily basis, rather than just once a week.
To help facilitate increased trade through Chengdu, an International Port Economic and Trade Logistics Cooperation Conference is being held in the city.
It’s part of the West China Import Expo and International Investment Fair, which will come to a close this coming Tuesday.