BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) -- The increasing trips of the Chang'an China-Europe freight train has greatly sped up the foreign trade development of Shaanxi Province in northwest China.
Data showed that from January to March this year, the Chang'an freight train had made 284 trips, up nearly 60 percent year on year, with import value and export value amounting to 85.998 million U.S. dollars and 220 million U.S. dollars respectively.
Besides, the Chang'an freight train had made a total of 1,235 trips last year, ranking the first nationwide in terms of heavy load rate, freight volume and actual trips.
The Chang'an freight train helps make logistics and trade go hand in hand by shifting the single transport service model.
Eyeing the smooth logistics of the Chang'an freight train as well as opportunities brought by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an electronic company in the Xi'an International Trade & Logistics (ITL) Park transported and sold 1,300 LCD (liquid crystal display) monitors to Kyrghyzstan via the freight train in January this year.
The successful export helped the company see the vast market in central Asia, firming its determination to expand markets in central Asia and Europe by taking advantage of the Chang'an freight train, said a source with the company.
The freight train has also boomed the cross-border e-commerce business in the Xi'an ITL Park, an economic pilot zone established by Xi'an and Shaanxi to build a new highland for inland reform and opening-up.
By relying on the Chang'an China-Europe freight train, a cross-border e-commerce firm named "Silk Road City" have expanded its business from central Asia to eastern Europe and established six overseas cabins in Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus.
In the first four months this year, the transaction of the firm's e-commerce platform and overseas cabins exceeded 50 million U.S. dollars, and the figure is expected to top 100 million U.S. dollars by the end of this year.
The freight train also drives the formation of large industrial clusters in the Xi'an ITL Park, attracting investments from domestic and Fortune Global 500 companies.
Currently, six centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) including China Merchants Group, China Resources Group and China Railway Group Limited (CREC) have settled in the park. (Edited by Gu Shanshan)
A single purchase
