Auto & Transportation

The year 2023 marks the tenth anniversary of the initiative of jointly building the "the Belt and Road". As an important hand in promoting the construction of the "the Belt and Road", China Europe Express showed strong development resilience at the beginning of the year, and its operation quality has steadily improved.

Since the beginning of this year, China Europe trains have all experienced "acceleration", with significant growth in the number of operating trains and the size of standard containers. For example, in January, the Yiwu platform shipped a total of 240 China-Europe trains and 20140 TEUs, with year-on-year growth of 179% and 172% respectively; Guangzhou Customs supervised the operation of 32 international trade import and export trains and 2852 standard containers, with year-on-year growth of 190.91% and 159.27% respectively; The China Europe train "Shanghai" opened seven trains and carried 728 TEUs of containers, an increase of 50% and 130% respectively compared to the average in 2022.

Qiu Wenxu, a researcher of the the Belt and Road Business School Alliance, told reporters that the freight volume of the China Europe Express is a "wind vane" for the international trade of goods between China and countries along the route. As the world's largest exporter of manufactured goods and importer of industrial products, China Europe Railway connects the world market with domestic production capacity, promoting the cross regional circulation of products, while also stimulating the market demand of countries along the line for China, thereby bringing incremental and development momentum to the domestic economy.

Overall, the latest data from China National Railway Group Co., Ltd. shows that in January 2023, a total of 1410 China-EU trains were operated nationwide, transporting 147000 standard containers of goods, with year-on-year growth of 6% and 13% respectively. In response, Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with reporters that the achievement of the "successful start" of the multi regional China Europe train may be related to arrangements related to the goal of stabilizing and recovering the economy in various regions.

In order to stabilize and recover the regional economy in 2023, many places have made deployment around the construction of high-level open relations and anchoring the "the Belt and Road" initiative. Among them, Yiwu proposed to take the 10th anniversary of the launch of the "Yixin Europe" train as an opportunity to make greater efforts to open up new routes for "Yixin Europe" in Central Asia and Southeast Asia, plan to arrange "overseas distribution centers" such as Duisburg, and strive to create a demonstration project for the China Europe Europe train distribution center; Guangdong has made it clear that it supports high growth enterprises to implement internationalization strategies and implement a new round of participation in the "the Belt and Road" construction; Shanghai plans to actively participate in the construction of high-quality development of the "the Belt and Road", create a pilot area for "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation, carry out the pilot construction of the regional "the Belt and Road" comprehensive service platform in the Yangtze River Delta, and build a number of professional trade platforms and national commodity trading centers at a high level.

"Stimulated by the gradual implementation of relevant plans, China Europe Express showed strong resilience at the beginning of the year." Wang Peng said that, at the same time, China Europe Express, as an important starting point for the construction of the "the Belt and Road", is an important carrier for countries along the line to strengthen economic cooperation. The China-EU train can promote trade and economic exchanges between regions, thereby promoting the international trade and economic development of countries along the line.

After reviewing the operation of China Europe Express in recent years, the reporter found that the increasing demand for bulk mechanical equipment and the significant growth in the export volume of new energy vehicles are becoming new features.

"The strong demand for bulk machinery and equipment is mainly due to the promotion of the 'the Belt and Road' construction and the economic development of the countries along the line." Wang Peng believes that, at the same time, with the increase in the transportation of related commodities, it will further promote the development of China EU trade and regional economic growth.

Qiu Wenxu added that China has irreplaceable quality price advantages in areas such as bulk machinery and equipment.

When talking about how to give full play to the economic driving effect of the China-EU train in the future, Qiu Wenxu said that it is necessary to strengthen the "five links" cooperation model, namely, policy communication, facility connectivity, smooth trade, financial accommodation, and popular support. Starting with international trade cooperation, deepening economic cooperation as the leading factor, fully connecting the existing stock capacity of international trade and economic cooperation, while deepening the international production capacity cooperation model, Jointly create an incremental market and supply capacity, and help jointly build the "the Belt and Road" with high quality.