To help jointly build the "the Belt and Road" with high quality, and open up the land and sea | channel | big channel in the west
The theme interview activity of "West Land Sea New Channel First Line Tour" with the theme of "Beautiful Scenery of the Steel Silk Road" was recently held. From the Yangtze River to the Beibu Gulf, from Chongqing to Guangxi, through climbing bridges, purchasing yards, and exploring trains, reporters traveled along more than 1400 kilometers of railway lines, witnessing the prosperity and vitality of the Western Land Sea New Corridor.
Showcasing strong transportation capacity and vitality
With the long whistle, the X9590 West Land Sea New Channel Rail Sea Intermodal Train slowly started, carrying a total of 71 TEUs and 2275 tons of goods such as Australian kraft paper and Singapore shortening, departing from Qinzhou Port East Station in Guangxi and heading towards Xiaonanya Station in Jiangjin District, Chongqing.
"Previously, this station was only a supporting facility of Qinzhou Bonded Port Area, with 3 tracks and 2 people on duty, with almost no freight volume, and only one or two freight trains departing per week." According to Huang Jiangnan, the director of Qinzhou Port East Station, as the construction of the western land sea new channel deepens, Qinzhou Port East Station has developed into an international freight hub station with 12 tracks, 43 employees, and about 20 daily rail sea intermodal trains. The freight volume has increased from 27000 tons in 2017 to 3.275 million tons in 2022, an increase of 120 times.
In early June, the China Laos Thailand cold chain train carrying about 500 tons of fresh Thai durian arrived at Xiaonanya Station smoothly. This is the first time that durian from Thailand has directly reached the Chengdu Chongqing region of western China through the Western Land Sea New Channel railway train from overseas. Zhang Lei, the director of Xiaonanya Station, introduced that it only took 88 hours for Thai durians to arrive in Chongqing from orchard picking, while traditional sea and road transportation takes at least 10 days.
"Recently, we imported 38 TEUs of Thai longan through the China Laos international freight train, and the entire transportation time was only 9 days, which is 5 days shorter than before, saving costs by more than 30%." Deng Haoji, Chief Operating Officer of Chongqing Hongjiu Fruit Products, said that the company has operated 16 factories in Thailand, Vietnam and other countries, and the next step is to rely on the logistics network of the western land sea new channel to build a fruit distribution center in Chongqing for the western region.
Against the backdrop of a slowdown in global trade and investment, the Western Land Sea New Corridor has demonstrated strong transportation capacity and vitality. In the first quarter of this year, automobile parts produced in Sichuan, Guangxi, Chongqing and other regions were exported to Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand, with a total of 3717 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 107.9%; 1134 TEUs of pulp produced in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines were imported to Chongqing, a year-on-year increase of 40%. Now, Cambodian rice, Thai perfume coconut, mangosteen, Vietnamese passion fruit, durian... more and more agricultural products from ASEAN countries are constantly entering the Chinese market through the new land and sea channels in the west. China's new energy, new materials, electromechanical and other products have also entered the enterprises and households of ASEAN countries through the western land sea new channel.
The radiation and driving role of the new land and sea channel in the west has been further strengthened, which has injected momentum into promoting high-quality joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" and unblocking the domestic and international dual cycle. According to statistics, from 2017 to 2022, the total import and export trade volume of provinces along the Western Land Sea New Corridor through Guangxi ports increased from less than 300 billion yuan to over 520 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 12%. The import and export volume of the regions along the Western Land Sea New Corridor to the 10 ASEAN countries has increased from 691.6 billion yuan in 2019 to 881.7 billion yuan in 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 8.91%.
Building a Large Platform for Modern Logistics System in Western China
The Western Land Sea New Corridor takes Chongqing as the logistics and operation organization center, constructing a modern logistics system of "channel+hub+network", including multimodal transportation modes such as railways, highways, waterways, and airports. Currently, it covers 18 provinces and connects to 393 ports in 119 countries and regions worldwide.
Since the first trial run of the "Chongqing Guangxi New" southbound channel in 2017, the new land and sea channel in the west has become an important part of the high-quality joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" from line to network, connecting the Silk Road Economic Belt to the north, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road to the south, and the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
At the construction site of Bijie Station on the Xubi Railway in Guizhou Province, workers are installing contact network positioning devices on their work vehicles. "The Xubi Railway is a smooth project for the western land sea new channel western route. Currently, the pre station construction of the Guizhou section of the Xubi Railway has been basically completed, and about 80% of the post station construction has been completed." said Ai Tianxin, Deputy Director of the Engineering Department of the Guiyang Construction Command of China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Co., Ltd.
The electrification renovation of the Huaihua section of the Jiaoliu Railway has been completed, and an additional second line of the Yuhuai Railway has been completed and put into operation. The Guiyang Nanning high-speed railway and the Xubi railway are planned to open within this year... The railway network that connects north and south and goes out to the sea is accelerating its formation. As of July this year, the western land sea new channel railway transportation has basically formed an international railway pattern with three main roads in the east, west, central and central regions as the backbone, and railways in various provinces, regions, and cities as the network, spanning the Eurasian continent and connecting the Indochinese Peninsula.
The Western Land Sea New Corridor has solved the geographical dilemma in the western region. Taking Chongqing as an example, taking the western land sea new channel rail sea intermodal freight train to Qinzhou Port in Guangxi for sea transportation saves about 10 days compared to traveling through the eastern region. The transportation categories of the Western Land Sea New Corridor have increased from more than 50 categories such as ceramics and panels to over 940 categories, including grain, automotive parts, computer parts, decorative materials, etc.
According to data provided by China Railway Group, the container transportation volume of rail sea intermodal trains in the western land sea new channel has increased 223 times in the past six years. Li Ningxin, General Manager of China Railway Union Guangxi Company, stated that as of July 31 this year, the West Land Sea New Channel Rail Sea Intermodal Transport trains have sent a total of 495000 TEUs of goods, a year-on-year increase of 12.5%.
Assist in ensuring the security and stability of the industrial and supply chains
The continuous promotion of the construction of the Western Land Sea New Corridor has brought new opportunities for connectivity and opening-up in the western region of China.
Chongqing Wankai New Material Technology Co., Ltd. is a leading domestic polyester material research and development and production enterprise. According to Lin Zheng, the logistics manager of the company, as of now, the company has shipped nearly a thousand TEUs of goods through the Western Land Sea New Channel, with a total value of over 20 million US dollars. In the future, the company will accelerate product exports through the western land sea new channel, achieve upstream and downstream linkage in the polyester industry, and stabilize the industrial and supply chains.
Near Qinzhou Port in Guangxi, the red characters "China Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park" are particularly prominent. In the foreign trade shops of the industrial park, there is a wide variety of products from ASEAN countries. The new cooperation model of "two countries, two parks" created by China Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park and Malaysia China Kuantan Industrial Park plays an important role in the cooperation between China and Malaysia in jointly building the "the Belt and Road". With the acceleration of the construction of the Western Land Sea New Corridor, the investment value of the two industrial parks has further increased.
Zhai Kun, Director of the ASEAN Research Center at Peking University, stated that the Western Land Sea New Corridor is not only a logistics corridor, but also an economic corridor. It is an international trade corridor and economic corridor that is systematically constructed based on the development concept of modern channel economy and hub economy, using transportation logistics channels and transportation logistics hubs as carriers, and deeply linked to supply chains, industrial chains, and value chains. In this sense, the Western Land Sea New Corridor provides a new option for maintaining and stabilizing the supply chain.
At present, the western land sea new channel adds one or two new categories of goods on average every month, and is integrating to build a large channel, hub, port, logistics, and platform. Liu Wei, director of the Logistics and Operation Organization Center of the Western Land and Sea New Channel, said: "Looking forward to the future, the Western Land and Sea New Channel will continue to maintain a good development trend, and make greater contributions to promoting the high-quality co construction of the the Belt and Road and accelerating the construction of a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main body and domestic and international double circulation promoting each other."
