Railway Container Flows Between China & Europe Increased 2.5 Times

In January – February 2021, 109.3 thousand TEU were transported via Russian railways from China to Europe and back, which is 2.5 times more against the same period of the previous year.

Transportations from China to Europe exceeded 71.6 thousand TEU (increasing 2.5 times), from Europe to China – 37.7 thousand TEU (increasing 2.4 times).

According to InfraNews, such a significant growth trend is largely explained by the low base effect resulting from transit decline. “Net” growth is around 55–60%, which is also a very good indicator.

At the same time, the rates for rail transportations between China and Northern Europe decreased for several weeks after the Chinese New Year despite a strong, stable demand from shippers.

Where there is demand, there are new routes

Freight forwarders have organized many new railway transportations over the past few months between China and Europe. The transport goes along three trade corridors – northern corridor via Russia, middle corridor via Kazakhstan and Russia, and southern corridor via Uzbekistan and Turkey.

On March 6, Denmark became the last Scandinavian country to join the network China – Kaliningrad (via Russia) – Copenhagen (along short sea).

Early in February, Nippon Express launched a new weekly flight along the northern route from Suzhou to Hamburg and Duisburg via Moscow and Małaszewicze.

DB Cargo Eurasia launched a new multimodal (sea and railway) route from Xi'an to Oslo and Helsinki via the Russian port in Kaliningrad, eliminating the stopover in Rostock and shortening the trip to Norway to 17 days.

CEVA Logistics also launched its new railway service – from Xi'an to Dourges in France via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Germany with an 18-day transit time.

Following the sharp increase in demand for the Trans-Siberian transportations, Maersk doubled its weekly AE19 (short-sea and intercontinental railway) services between Asia and Northern Europe. The volume of traffic is planned to increase to daily.

FESCO Transport Group launches a regular intermodal container service from Shanxi Province, China, to Hamburg via Mongolia and St. Petersburg port.

Regular services (4 times a month) from Taiyuan to Avtovo station in St. Petersburg via Erenhot and Naushki border crossing points have been launched. Further, containers are transported by FESCO regular sea lines to Hamburg port to consignees in Europe.

Sources used: infranews.ru, chinalogist.ru