Belt and Road Construction Facilitates a Faster World
Nemeth Miklos Ivan, consul of Hungary in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, and Qi Dan, head of Yuxinou (Chongqing) Logistics Co., have a shared goal and that is to build Budapest into one of the biggest logistics centers in eastern Europe.
Qi explored the rail route between Chongqing and Duisburg in Germany in 2011 which was the beginning of China-Europe cargo train service. Chongqing is situated on the "connecting point" of the Belt and Road and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. It is an important location in China's western development strategy and plays a unique role in China's regional development and opening up.
It is connected to the eastern seaboard. The Yangtze, China's longest river, made it a transfer hub for commodities from the western areas to be sold across the world. It also made possible for goods from around the globe to reach China's far west.
The international train service has been expanding fast in the city over the past eight years as a result of boosting by the Belt and Road construction.
The service of Yuxinou now takes about one-third of the traditional ocean shipping time which is about 12 days from Chongqing to Europe. In 2014 only 100 freight trains traveled between Chongqing and European countries and now it became 1,442 last year.
Akos Kovacs, a Hungarian businessman said that Yuxinou has made China and European countries closer with shorter freight transportation time and stronger cash flow. Commodities from the Chinese market can also reach to six other countries including the Czech Republic and Romania, and vice versa if we build a distribution center in Budapest, he added.
Southeast Asian countries also benefit from the China-Europe freight trains, especially after Chongqing launched the China-Singapore rail-sea transit route in 2017. A new trade and logistics passage, the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, was constructed. It is under the framework of the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity.
The new corridor uses ports in Guangxi's Beibu Gulf to reach ports in Singapore and other ASEAN countries and it uses Chongqing as a transportation hub. It also links China-Europe freight trains launched from many western Chinese cities before heading for Central Asia, South Asia and Europe.
The freight trains had made 805 trips via the corridor, which links 155 ports in 71 countries and regions worldwide, by the end of last year.A total of 48 Chinese cities have launched 65 cargo train routes besides Chongqing. They reached 14 countries and more than 40 cities in Europe in 2018. As of February, over 13,000 trips have been conducted by the China-Europe trains. China-proposed Belt and Road construction drive freight transportation.
Companies in China and Belt and Road countries are seeking better partners. They turn to the Internet for new retail markets, cross-border e-commerce platforms, like Osell, are mushrooming to meet their needs.
Osell has set up local service offices and experience centers in cities including Moscow, Warsaw and Dubai so far. They aim to expand their bridge connecting China and the world.
Zhu Fuxing, vice president of Osell Group said that they aim to promote the successful e-commerce experience of Chinese companies to countries along the Belt and Road, help companies look for opportunities and realize cooperation.
Conclusion :
Through the Belt and Road initiative China is becoming more developed. The transportation of commodities has become easier. The number of international train services increased and freight movement became easy. The cooperation between other countries have improved and this will lead to the further expansion of the Chinese market and economy.