Another Chinese province joins the Middle Corridor

The first train from another Chinese region has left the new freight line via Azerbaijan and Georgia, carrying 104 standard containers loaded with auto parts and mechanical equipment. The cargo is worth more than 15 million yuan, or about $2.093 million.

Report reported, citing the Beijing branch of the China State Railway Corporation.

The train left the station in Beijing's Fanshan District on June 30 and will head to the Kazakh port of Aktau on the Caspian Sea via the Khorgos checkpoint in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The cargo will then enter the Azerbaijani port of Alyat by sea and be transported by rail to Baku. After arriving in Baku, part of the containers will be redirected to Georgia, Turkey, Serbia and other countries in the region.

The route will be implemented using a multimodal scheme, “rail-sea-rail”. The total length exceeds 8,000 km, and the delivery time is approximately 15 days.

According to Wang Chuanmen, General Director of the Fanshan International Land Port Management Company, the route is part of the Middle Corridor, which is the southern branch of the China-Europe global transport network.

“The use of the multimodal principle allows us to significantly reduce delivery times compared to traditional maritime logistics and expand the geography by covering the Caspian region, the Black Sea and Mediterranean basins, as well as the countries of Central, Eastern and Western Europe,” Chuanmen says.

In turn, the China Railway Corporation notes that the launch of the new route creates a convenient and efficient logistics channel for enterprises in Beijing and the surrounding regions. According to the agency, this will reduce logistics costs, increase export potential, and strengthen trade and economic ties between China and the countries of the region, including Georgia.

It is noteworthy that a month ago, another Chinese train, the China-Europe Express, also left Wuhan, the epicenter of the Covid pandemic, for the first time. In particular, the train's cargo in the direction of Tbilisi and the port of Poti amounted to 14.82 million yuan, or approximately 2.06 million dollars, worth of goods, including light mechanical equipment, agricultural machinery, and construction materials. The journey took about 18 days. This is also a new route, which included the Chinese province of Hubei in the Middle Corridor. Transportation of goods from Wuhan to Georgia was also carried out using the multimodal “rail-sea-rail” scheme.

For reference: According to the Kazakh Railways, this year, approximately 600 container trains are planned to depart from China along the Middle Corridor. The transit of containers from China along the Middle Corridor, i.e. the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), increased significantly with the opening of the Kazakhstan-China terminal in the city of Xi’an in 2024. In particular, according to the results of the previous year, 358 container trains were sent from China along the TITR, which is 33 times more than in 2023.

In general, the current capacity of the railway segment of the TITR is 6 million tons of cargo per year. This figure is planned to be increased to 10 million tons per year through further development of railway and port infrastructure along the entire Middle Corridor.

According to the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the railway component of the Middle Corridor alone has a potential annual trade turnover of 75 billion dollars.

 

Info: bpn.ge