release time:2021/1/21
In the year of 2020, when the Covid-19 epidemic was raging, the China-Europe freight train started to accelerate.
"Last year, 12,406 freight trains ran between China and Europe, an increase of 50 percent year on year, breaking the '10,000' mark for the first time and 7.3 times the number in 2016." In the second half of the year, in particular, the monthly number of bank openings remained around 1,200 lines, marking 10 consecutive months of double-digit year-on-year growth and eight months of more than 1,000 lines per month, Zhao Chenxin, secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a NDRC press conference on Jan. 19.
This equates to one train every 43 minutes.
Foreign media lamented that during the epidemic period, the number of trains between China and Europe did not decrease but increased, which showed the potential of "One Belt And One Road" in expanding trade and business exchanges.
Carrying capacity of China-Europe freight trains has been comprehensively enhanced
"The China-Europe freight train has become an important logistics channel supporting global trade." Ministry of Commerce China International Electronic Commerce Center Research Institute President Li Mingtao in an interview with "China Trade News".
Liu Bin, an associate researcher at the University of International Business and Economics' National Institute for Opening up, said that the China-Europe freight train, as a new artery of international transportation, is playing an increasingly prominent role. The regular and stable operation of China-Europe freight trains will help reduce the impact of the epidemic on China-EU industrial and supply chain cooperation. At the same time, China-Europe freight train is the flagship project of "One Belt And One Road", and the good operation of China-Europe freight train is also an important result of high-quality joint cOne Belt And One Roadruction of "BBB1".
Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, China's civil aviation completed a total of 79.85 billion ton-km, 420 million person-times and 6.766 million tons of transportation last year, equivalent to 61.7%, 63.3% and 89.8% of 2019's total transportation volume.
"At the same time, COSCO shipping companies have also cancelled a large number of trips, providing an opportunity for the rapid development of China-Europe freight trains." Liu Bin told reporters that compared with air and sea transport, the advantages of China-Europe freight train are cost performance, stability and convenience. It has realized "ten days to Europe", the transportation time is only 1/3 of the traditional rail and sea combined transport, and the freight price is only 1/5 of the air transport.
Li Mingtao said that affected by the global epidemic, European and American countries' demand for Chinese-made products, especially medical supplies, electronic products and household items, has increased significantly, prompting more traders to use the China-Europe freight train to carry out cargo transport.
In April 2020, the Ministry of Commerce issued the Notice on Strengthening the Role of China-Europe Railway Trains in Coping with the Covid-19 Epidemics and Stabilizing Foreign Trade and Promoting Foreign Investment Consumption. "The circular lays out 11 specific measures and work requirements, which will play a key role in guiding the operation of China-Europe freight trains." Liu said.
In 2020, the operation network of freight trains between China and Europe will continue to expand, and large-scale hubs will take shape. "China-Europe freight trains have reached 92 cities in 21 countries, an increase of 37 or 67% over the same period last year. Eight new railway boxes have been built in 16 countries, bringing the total number to 80. There are 73 dedicated lines for China-Europe freight trains, an increase of 6 over the same period last year. In Xi 'an, Chongqing and Chengdu, the annual number of China-Europe freight trains is more than 2,000, accounting for 58% of the total number of China's freight trains. The operation of freight trains has begun to shift from 'point-to-point' to 'hub to hub'." Zhao Chenxin said.
The empty load problem on the return trip of China-Europe freight trains, which was often criticized in the past, has also been greatly improved. Zhao Chenxin said that last year, the comprehensive load rate of China-Europe freight trains reached 98.4%, an increase of 4.6 percentage points over the same period last year. Among them, the return load rate increased significantly, an increase of 9.3 percentage points over the same period last year.
"This shows that the return cargo solicitation service system of China-Europe freight train has been improved and the cargo solicitation capacity has been continuously improved. More and more European traders have become accustomed to the logistics and transportation services of China-Europe freight train. From the return goods category, in addition to meet the domestic demand of food, electronic products and raw materials, intermediates produced in Europe relatively fast growth, suggests that European countries affected by the epidemic factors such as manufacturing industry, have more with China's production and processing capacity, highlighting China hub status in global production and processing." Li Mingtao said.
We will make better use of the competitive advantages of China-Europe freight trains
The change of a port can reflect the overall upgrade of China-Europe freight trains in the past five years.
In North China's Manzhouli, a total of 1,036 China-Europe freight trains entered and left the Manzhouli port in 2016, and 3,079 in 2020. The operating lines have grown from 32 in 2016 to 52 now. More shifts, but no decrease in operating efficiency. Through the construction of online digital port system, customs clearance efficiency has been greatly improved, and the clearance time of China-Europe freight trains at Manzhouli port can be guaranteed within 3 hours.
Across the country, "the digital port system was put into operation last year, innovating the 'three and two' mode of consolidation and transport, and greatly improving the efficiency of port handover. The level of public information service is constantly improving. The customer service center of China-Europe Railway Express has pushed a total of 510,000 track information and dealt with 185 transportation organizational obstacles." "Zhao Chenxin said.
Li said that the improvement of digitization level is a key factor for the China-Europe freight train to improve service capacity, improve transport efficiency and reduce transport costs. Data sharing through online platforms such as the digital port system can greatly improve the customs clearance efficiency of goods in countries along the Belt and Road. Meanwhile, the improvement of digital level can better serve the personalized needs of traders, reduce the cost of documents, etc., and establish the unique precision service advantage of China-Europe freight train.
Liu Bin believes that the development of "digital freight trains" and the provision of high value-added services is an important and inevitable direction for the development of China-Europe freight trains. High-value goods source is an important market segment of China-Europe freight trains. Only by providing comprehensive services with high added value can we further attract high-value goods source.
At the same time, the development of China-Europe freight trains still faces considerable challenges.
"An important problem with China-Europe freight trains is that they bloom in chaos." Liu Bin believes that in recent years, inland cities and even many coastal cities have launched China-Europe freight trains, which is not conducive to the sound development of China-Europe freight trains. There should be a certain threshold for the opening of China-Europe freight trains, and China-Europe freight trains with conflicting sources of goods and overlapping transport routes should cooperate with each other and move together.
In Li Mingtao view, of the greatest challenges faced by the central trains still lies in how to continue to raise their competitive advantage relative to ocean, air, such as through the extensive application of digital technology to build digital central trains, continued to improve customs clearance efficiency between different countries and at the same time, to achieve a point to declare, whole process tracking, personalized services, integrating more end-to-end service resources, etc.
"Global trade also faces many challenges under the influence of destabilizing factors such as the global epidemic. Thanks to the stable service capacity of China-Europe freight trains and the increasingly perfect trade service ecology around China-Europe freight trains, coupled with the continuous investment of domestic cities, especially some inland cities, in China-Europe freight trains, it is believed that in 2021, the volume of China-Europe freight trains and supporting trade volume of goods will still maintain a high growth rate." Li Mingtao said.
Liu Bin also believes that the external environment facing the development of China-Europe freight trains is still good. Meanwhile, the efficient and stable transport capacity of China-Europe freight trains has certain customer stickiness. It is expected that the China-Europe freight trains will continue to be popular in 2021.
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