New China-Europe freight train route links China’s Chongqing with Ukraine
A freight train loaded with 50 containers of machinery and equipment left southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality Sunday for capital of Ukraine, marking the launch of Chongqing’s new freight train route.
The freight train is scheduled to pass through the border port of Erenhot in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and will reach its destination in mid-September.
Previously, exports from Chongqing to Ukraine had to go through Belarus or Poland rather than heading directly for Ukraine. The new route is the municipality’s first direct international freight train route to Kyiv. It is expected to further facilitate trade between Europe and the western regions of China.
Chongqing is a primary hub for China-Europe freight trains. The Yuxinou (Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe) railway, which was the first China-Europe freight train route, saw 1,359 trips in the first half of 2021, up over 50 percent year on year, according to the port and logistics office of the municipal government.
Since the railway was put into operation in 2011, Yuxinou has launched more than 30 routes, connecting over 40 cities across 26 countries, and the routes have recorded over 8,000 freight train trips.
Source:News.cn
The main challenge in squaring all these factors is that despite the attention they receive, there is little reliable and centralized information about these new services. Frequency of China-Europe rail services, cargo volume, cargo rates, and other basic information is hard to find, especially compared to maritime and air freight data. Many of these shortcomings stem from the newness of these routes, the complexity inherent in moving goods across many borders, and the resulting disaggregation of data. Data could improve in the coming years, but there are also incentives for obscuring the information. These trains carry not only commercial goods but also political ambitions. Drawing from interviews with 34 stakeholders, this report contributes to filling that gap in two parts. First, it examines the rise of China-Europe railway services and their drivers. China-Europe rail has grown not only in terms of origins and destinations but also in terms of cargo volume, cargo type, and overall competitiveness. Driving these trends are several political, technical, and technological factors, chief among them subsidies and improvements in logistics processes. Second, it considers these developments within a broader trade context and identifies several challenges to future growth, including trade imbalances, capacity constraints, and the enduring strengths of maritime shipping.