The China-Europe freight train is a “golden train” full of development opportunities, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday. Lin made the remarks as the 10,000th China-Europe freight train this year departed from Wuhan City in central China’s Hubei Province on July 10, 19 days ahead of the 10,000th train last year.
“A total of 10,000 China-Europe freight train trips have been made this year, delivering over one million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers of goods, up 11 percent year on year. The number of freight train trips in three major routes in the western, middle and eastern corridors of the train service rose 13 percent, 20 percent and 5 percent over the previous year, respectively. The number of train trips running on the southern corridor increased 15 times, injecting new impetus to guarantee the stability of production and supply chains and promote economic and trade exchanges between China and Europe,” said Lin.
“The China-Europe freight train is a ‘steel camel caravan’ crossing mountains and seas and also a ‘golden train’ full of development opportunities. Now the train service has reached 224 cities in 25 European countries and over 100 cities in 11 Asian countries, with a large number of enterprises engaged in international trade, supply chain service, and other areas taking roots in regions along the routes. The train service has also become an iconic brand in the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative with its advantages in speedy, high-quality, safe and stable transportation,” he said.