China Railway Express services connect 27 Chinese cities with 11 countries
ChengduSuzhou
Hefei
Shenyang
Guangzhou
Harbin
Dalian
Lanzhou
Nanjing
Kuerle
TaiyuanXining
Shihezi
Chifeng
Germany
Duisburg
HamburgTilburg
Nuremberg
Schwarzheide
Yingkou
Russia
Cherkessk
Moscow
Changchun
NanchangYiwu
Dongguan
Kunming
ChongqingChangsha
Wuhan
Xi’an
Tianjin
Beijing
Zhengzhou
UK
London
Latvia
France
Lyon
BelarusBrest
Minsk
The NetherlandsRotterdam
SpainMadrid
Czech RepublicPardubice
Poznan Malaszewicze
Warsaw
Riga
Poland
Chelyabinsk
Irkutsk
Growth inCR Express
services
0 500 1,000 1,500
17
42
80
308
815
1,702
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Source: China Railway Corp
Zabaikalsk
Eastern routeCentral routeWestern routeProposed route
BelgiumAntwerp
Lodz
Stuttgart
BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE6
Cargo goes the distance, and drivers take it one step at a timeBy LUO WANGSHU
For Zhong Junlan, taking thehelm of a China Railway Expresstrain is like running a relay race. “Idrive to point A,” he said, “and thenanother driver takes over, thenanother, and so on, until the cargoreaches its final destination.”
It is a race he has been runningsince 2013, when he was chosen todrive the first leg of the inauguralcrossborder freight service fromChengdu, the capital of Sichuan
province, to Lodz in Poland.The journey to Guangyuan, 360
kilometers up the track, takes onaverage more than five hours, hesaid. From there, about 50 driverswill steer the cargo in shifts the restof the way, some 9,466 km, overabout 12 days.
For safety reasons, drivers in China are restricted from working formore than six hours at a time.Zhong said if a CR Express train isscheduled to pass through Guangyuan in the opposite direction
within a day or so, he will drive thatback to Chengdu. If not, he willtake a day off and return to base forhis next assignment.
Although the 33yearold is a veteran in starting the race, he hasnever seen the finish line.
“It’s a pity that I’ve never been toAlashankou,” he said, referring tothe city in the Xinjiang Uygurautonomous region where thetrain crosses the border intoKazakhstan, “or to Lodz, for thatmatter.”
Zhong’s role may only cover 4percent of the entire journey, buthe said the job is far from easy.
“It’s a mountainous regionbetween Chengdu and Guangyuan,with many ups and downs andcurves. So it requires extremelysmooth handling to drive a CRExpress train because it can be carrying fragile or valuable commodities, such as electronic products,handicrafts or plants,” he said.
The maximum speed a freighttrain is allowed to go in China is
CR EXPRESS CARRIES WEIGHT OF EXPECTATIONSRail freight services linking Chinese cities with destinations across Eurasia seen as critical to boosting trade and economic ties
By LUO [email protected]
Thetreesandplantsexportedby Sichuan Heshengde Importand Export Trade Co used tospend up to 35 days in transitbefore they reached their destination markets in Europe.
After being loaded onto atruck at the company’s base inChengdu, capital of Sichuanprovince, the plants were driven to Xiamen Port on thesoutheast coast and transferred to a ship, which crossedthe Indian Ocean and the RedSea before docking in Europe.
Things changed in December, however, when the company switched to using aChina Railway Express freightservice that travels betweenChengdu and the Dutch city ofTilburg in just 13 days.
“It’s not only cut the traveltime, but also wastage,” saidGao Yunfei, assistant to Heshengde’s general manager. “Therail journey has increased thesurvival rate of our plants by10 percent compared with theprevious shipping method.
“The plants also look muchbetter,whichmeanstheycanbesoldatahigherprice,”headded.
To date, the company hasshipped nine containers loaded with money tree plants,Chinese banyan or white willow on the freight service.Most containers are about 12meters by 2 meters by 2meters.
Gao said about half ofHeshengde’s exports nowtravel by train. “The price ishigher, but considering thetime and reduced wastage,the cost is about the same asby sea,” he said. “It dependson our customers’ requirements, but as the supplier, weprefer rail.”
The CR Express network ishelping companies throughout China and neighboringcountries to improve theirtrade with markets in CentralAsia and Europe.
Chinalaunchedits firstcrossborder rail freight service —between Chongqing and Duisburg in Germany — in March2011. Since then, the numberhas risen to 51, connecting 27Chinese cities with 28 destinations in 11 countries.
Some 3,557 outbound andinbound journeys had beenmade on these routes, andthat figure is expected hit5,000 by 2020, according to afiveyear development planfor the CR Express released inOctober by the NationalDevelopment and ReformCommission.
Seventeen Chinese citieshave regular scheduled services, with the busiest beingChengdu, where 10 trainsdepart every week. The other10 offer chartered services.
The shortest run is betweenChengdu and Lodz in Poland,which takes 12 days, while thelongest starts in Yiwu in Zhejiang and ends in Madrid, cov
ering 13,052 km in 18 days.CR Express services utilize
three key border ports: Manzhouli in the Inner Mongoliaautonomous region, the eastern gateway; Erenhot in InnerMongolia, the central gateway;and Alashankou and Khorgosin the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, which form thewestern gateway.
As a logistical option, railfreight is faster than by sea andcheaper than by air, accordingto the network operator, ChinaRailway Corp, which saysalmost all services arrive ontime. Prices are not publiclydisclosed.
Plan to rebrandChina’s first crossborder
freight services were launchedby local railway authorities,with a route’s name usuallymade up of the departure city,the border port and the destination: ChongqingXinjiangEurope, for example.
Last year, the NDRCrebranded all services as CRExpress as part of its development plan, which highlightedthe rail links as crucial to theBelt and Road Initiative.
First proposed by PresidentXi Jinping in 2013, the initiative comprises the Silk RoadEconomic Belt and the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road,and aims to boost trade andinvestment between China,Central Asia, the Middle East,Europe and Africa.
Logistics services are seen asa physical link connecting Eurasia that could prove the cornerstone for strengtheningeconomic ties. However, thedevelopment plan states thatbetter regulation is urgentlyneeded to deal with the highcosts, disorderly competition,inefficient customs clearance,and unsuitable infrastructure.
The plan sets a target to havethree gateways and 43 transithubs as part of the CR Expressnetwork by 2020.
Twoway trafficOver the past six years, not
only has the frequency andcapacity of China’s freighttrains increased, but the cargothey carry has also changed.
In the early days, containerswere mainly filled with electronic devices made in China,such as laptops and cell
phones, but today, productsrange from plants to shoes toChristmas decorations. Individuals can even rent space toship their personal belongingswhen they move home.
As the domestic consumermarket has grown, more trainsare also returning to Chinesecities loaded with Europeangoods.
“More than 1,000 kinds ofsmall commodities, fromclothes to Christmas gifts, ridethe freight train from Yiwu toEurope,” said Liu Xilin, whoruns the Shanghai office ofChina Railway ContainerTransport Corp.
Yiwu is the world’s largesthub for small commodities,manufacturing about 1.8 million various kinds of goods,fromair conditionersandpower tools to hats and auto parts.
Eight rail freight routes connect the city with destinationsacross Eurasia, including London, which in January becamethe westernmost point of theCR Express network. The inaugural service transported dailysupplies, clothes, suitcases,bags and fabric to the Britishcapital, and returned loadedwith maternity products, softdrinks and vitamins.
“Since the London servicestarted, my cellphone has notstopped ringing with callsfrom customers in China andabroad,” said Fang Xudong atYiwu Timex Industrial Investment, which helps companiesuse CR Express services.
Last year, 120 trains leftWuhan, the capital of Hubeiprovince,boundforEurope,and102 trains returned carryinggoods.
“Red wine from Bordeaux,milk and edible oil from Belarus, and flour from Russiawere transported on thosefreight trains to Wuhan,” saidWu Guangming, president ofWuhan AsiaEurope Logistics.“Those products were storedin customized refrigeratedcontainers and sold at a reasonable price, allowing ordinary people to enjoy thebenefits of the Belt and RoadInitiative.”
His company rented five foreigndesigned refrigerated containerslastyear,butWusaidthisyear it will use a domesticallydeveloped container. “Technology can support internationaltradeandmeetmorecustomers’requirements,” he added.
The CR Express managementoffice inChengduhaspledgedtoimprove the efficiency of its services and is working with thirdparty companies to better cater to clients’ demands.
“Customers can now talkdirectly with account managerswho coordinate the entire procedure, includingcustomsclearance and storage,” said ZhengShuangli, marketing director atChengdu Inland Port OperationCo, a logistics agency.
“Clients no longer need gothrough all procedures alone,”she added.
The CR Express freight service has turned Alashankou in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region into a bustling border port. CHEN JIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY
Workers unload a car at Chengdu inland port that was shipped from Nuremberg in Germany usinga China Railway Express freight service. CHEN JIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY
Since the Londonservice started, mycellphone has notstopped ringingwith calls fromcustomers.”Fang Xudong, employee at YiwuTimex Industrial Investment
China Railway Express services connect 27 Chinese cities with 11 countries
ChengduSuzhou
Hefei
Shenyang
Guangzhou
Harbin
Dalian
Lanzhou
Nanjing
Kuerle
TaiyuanXining
Shihezi
Chifeng
Germany
Duisburg
HamburgTilburg
Nuremberg
Schwarzheide
Yingkou
Russia
Cherkessk
Moscow
Changchun
NanchangYiwu
Dongguan
Kunming
ChongqingChangsha
Wuhan
Xi’an
Tianjin
Beijing
Zhengzhou
UK
London
Latvia
France
Lyon
BelarusBrest
Minsk
The NetherlandsRotterdam
SpainMadrid
Czech RepublicPardubice
Poznan Malaszewicze
Warsaw
Riga
Poland
Chelyabinsk
Irkutsk
Growth inCR Express
services
0 500 1,000 1,500
17
42
80
308
815
1,702
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Source: China Railway Corp
Zabaikalsk
Eastern routeCentral routeWestern routeProposed route
BelgiumAntwerp
Lodz
Stuttgart
Monday, May 8, 2017 CHINA DAILY
7
In Chongqing,traders are gettingon the right trackBy CHEN YINGQUN
In ancient times, Chinesemerchants headed west totransport tea to Europe.Today, Italian trader NicolaSangiovanni is helping European wines travel east to China.
Two years ago, he wasinspired to start a businessselling imported food anddrink in Chongqing, a bustling metropolis in thesouthwest, after hearingabout the Belt and Road Initiative.
“I think China is very open,and this kind of opening up(the initiative) is a goodopportunity for cooperation,”he said, standing in the Italian Pavilion at the ChongqingInternational Exhibition andTrading Center, where hisbusiness is based.
“Moreover,” he added,“the ChongqingXinjiangEurope freight trains provide fast, lowcost andconvenient transportation,which makes importing andexporting easier.”
The service, now part ofthe rebranded China Railway Express network,departs from Chongqing andtravels more than 11,000kilometers across Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus andPoland before arriving inDuisburg, Germany. The ser
vice has been credited withgreatly boosting trade andinvestment between Chinaand countries along the SilkRoad Economic Belt and21st Century Maritime SilkRoad.
Chongqing, which theYangtze River runs through,has more than 1,000 piersand is an important connection point between shippingand the railways. Goodsfrom neighboring provincesand Southeast Asia all passthrough here, with thefreight trains able to delivercargo to 36 cities in 12 European nations.
Since 2011, more than1,000 trains have ridden onthe ChongqingEurope raillink, according to Yang Liqiong, deputy director of thelocal economy and information technology commission. She said the numberthis year is forecast to hit arecord 500, up from 432 lastyear.
“The rail service is muchfaster than shipping andmuch cheaper than on an airplane,” Yang said, adding thatthe train takes only 12 or 13days to arrive in Duisburg —30 days quicker than a ship —and is onefifth the cost of airfreight.
Gu Yonghong, generalmanager of ChongqingLogistics City, where the rail
services depart and arrive,said laptops and other electronic devices make up themajority of outbound cargo.The city manufacturesabout onefourth of theworld’s laptops.
Last year alone, 3,200 containers carrying laptopswere sent to Europe, he said,along with mechanicalgoods, petroleum exploration equipment, clothes, andagricultural products,
including lemons.“The goods arriving from
Europe are mainly auto parts,food, milk, wine, luxury products, and raw materials likefeed grain and nonferrousmetals,” Gu said, adding thatthe Belt and Road Initiative“will greatly strengthenChongqing’s image overseasand bring great benefits toChinese manufacturing andtrade”.
Yang said the city hasworked to improve itsfreight train services inrecent years, such as by fitting containers with digitallocks that have GPS and analarm function to boostsecurity, as well as doingresearch on containers thatcan store products inextremely cold temperaturesfor weeks at a time.
She said the local authorities also plan to connect therailwaywithair transport services, which would allowtrading companies to sendtheir goods to Chongqing byair and then onto Europe byrail.
Central Asian foods offera taste of things to comeBy CHEN [email protected]
With a long whistle to herald itsarrival, the freight trainChang’an pulled into the station at Xi’an, the capital ofShaanxi province, in lateMarch. On board was 1,000metric tons of rapeseed oiland 1,000 tons of sunflowerseed oil from Kazakhstan.
It was the first time thefreight service had carriedgoods produced in the Central Asian nation.
The oil was bound for Xi’anAiju Grain and Oil IndustryGroup, and in a few months itwill be on Chinese diningtables, according to the company’s chairman, Jia Heyi.
Jia had been searching forbusiness opportunities inCentral Asia ever since President Xi Jinping proposed theBelt and Road Initiative in2013, but it wasn’t until hevisited an expo in Almaty, thelargest city in Kazakhstan, in2015 that he spotted one.
“I bought some local wheatflour and used it to make noodles, which were really tasty,”he said. “In Kazakhstan, people use traditional ways toplant crops. They seldom usechemical fertilizers or pesticides. Its wheat yield is muchlower than China’s, but thequality is good.”
He said he went on to learnthat Kazakhstan is about 13times the size of Shaanxi, buthas only half the population,which means large areas ofrich arable land is often leftunused.
“Every year, about a third ofthe land remains unplanted,and farmers don’t have thetechnology or the networks togrow various crops and sell
them to the right markets,” hesaid.
Not long after getting ataste of the country, Jia begansourcing agricultural products from Kazakhstan. Todate, Aiju Group has imported about 2,300 tons of oil,5,000 tons of flour and 1,500tons of wheat.
The company is also building two factories in the NorthKazakhstan Region, whichwill process up to 1,000 tonsof wheat and 1,000 tons ofsunflower oil a day, as well asa base to plant wheat andsunflower seeds over 33 hectares. The base will be finished by 2020 and create 300jobs, Jia said.
“We can bring highefficiency planting and processing technologies toKazakhstan, which will helpwith local economic develop
ment,” he said. “The projectscan also benefit China, asthey will safeguard food security and sustainable agricultural development.”
He added that he plans tostart importing beef, mutton,honeyandmilkproducts fromCentral Asia, too, as transportation is so convenient.
Xi’an launched its firstcrossborder rail freight service to Almaty in 2013. Sincethen, it has started services toMoscow, Rotterdam in theNetherlands, Warsaw inPoland, Hamburg in Germany and Budapest in Hungary.
So far, 317 trains have traveled on the network andexported a combined 474,000tonsof cargo, according to theofficial data.
Bai Qinbin, deputy directorof port management for theXi’an International Trade and
Logistics Park, said the city’slarge transportation networkcan help boost trade andinvestment between Chinaand countries involved in theBelt and Road Initiative.
“We’re working on startinga service between Xi’an toTeheran this year, as the Middle East is in great need ofChinese goods, especiallyfood and commodities fordaily use,” he said.
Xi’an is also building up itsairfreight and shipping networks, he said. Since the startof last year, charter flightshave been departing fromXi’an bound for Amsterdamand Seoul to serve crossborder businesses.
“We want Shaanxi peopleto be able to buy from theworld and sell to the world —even without leavingShaanxi,” Bai said.
Cargo goes the distance, and drivers take it one step at a timeZhong’s role may only cover 4
percent of the entire journey, buthe said the job is far from easy.
“It’s a mountainous regionbetween Chengdu and Guangyuan,with many ups and downs andcurves. So it requires extremelysmooth handling to drive a CRExpress train because it can be carrying fragile or valuable commodities, such as electronic products,handicrafts or plants,” he said.
The maximum speed a freighttrain is allowed to go in China is
120 km/h, although Zhong said hetakes it slow.
“I have been driving freight trainson this stretch of track since 2009. Iknow every corner and every hill,”he said, adding that experience hastaught him when to adjust thespeed to keep a train steady depending on its length and weight.
Since the first rail freight serviceleft Chongqing in 2011, the numberof international freight serviceshas risen rapidly. So too hasZhong’s workload. “When I first
started to drive freight trains, itwas less work, as there were only acouple of trains a week. Now, one tothree trains leave Chengdu everyday,” he said. “We also used to havefewer drivers, and we worked onother assignments. Today, CRExpress drivers only take the helmof CR Express trains.
“My dream is to one day take thetrain all the way to Alashankou, oreven Lodz, to see the changes ourservices bring to locals along therailway,” he added.
CR EXPRESS CARRIES WEIGHT OF EXPECTATIONS
The CR Express freight service has turned Alashankou in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region into a bustling border port. CHEN JIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY
A freight train leaves Yiwu in Zhejiang province bound for Madridon April 15. CHEN JIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY
A display of handicrafts at the Kazakhstan section of an international trade fair draws visitors inXi’an, Shaanxi province. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
The rail serviceis much fasterthan shipping andmuch cheaper thanon an airplane.”Yang Liqiong, deputy directorof Chongqing MunicipalCommission of Economy andInformation Technology
