A train fully loaded with diverse goods has departed from Xi’an, the capital city of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, bound for Malaszewicze, Poland, marking a significant milestone as the total number of China-Europe freight train trips has surpassed 90,000, News.Az reports citing Xinhua.
To date, China-Europe freight trains have transported more than 8.7 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers of goods, valued at 380 billion U.S. dollars, according to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd (China Railway).
From 2016 to 2023, the annual number of China-Europe freight train trips surged from 1,702 to over 17,000. The value of goods transported by this service skyrocketed from 8 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to 56.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.
The types of commodities transported via the China-Europe freight trains have expanded from IT products such as laptops and printers at the beginning to over 50,000 different types, including clothing and footwear, automobiles and parts, daily necessities, food, timber, furniture, chemicals and machinery.
So far, the China-Europe freight trains have reached 223 cities in 25 European countries and over 100 cities in 11 Asian countries, with the service network covering almost the entire Eurasian continent, it added.
“The China-Europe freight trains represent a new model of international transportation with advantages such as convenience, speed, safety, stability and green economy. They have become widely popular as an international public product,” said Huang Xin, deputy director of China Railway’s cargo department.
“They have injected new momentum into serving the high-quality construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and promoting economic and trade exchanges between China and Europe,” Huang added.