Türkiye’s first cargo train carrying exports to China has crossed the border
The train of which reports by some professional journalists in Türkiye said “It is not going to China.” has reached China.
According to a statement by local Chinese customs, the China-Europe freight train coming from Türkiye entered China on Thursday 17 December via Horgos Port in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in north-western China.
The cargo train, which left Istanbul on 4 December and is bound for the city of Xi’an in north-western China, is the realisation of the first export from Türkiye to China under the Belt and Road project. Covering a distance of 8,693 km, it is scheduled to arrive at its final destination on Saturday 19 December 2020. The train is carrying 1,383 refrigerators worth about 10.4 million yuan (about 1.59 million US dollars).
While international shipping and air freight logistics have been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Horgos customs on the China-Kazakhstan border, China-Europe freight trains have consolidated the stability of global industrial and supply chains.
Customs said that this was also the first return China-Europe freight train to pass through the “southern corridor”, a transport network that includes the Trans-Caspian corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway.
Chen Fang said, “The successful launch of this train will bring more logistics and freight resources to the ‘southern corridor’, turn the advantages of the route into market benefits, and give new momentum to the joint construction of the Belt and Road (BRI) and to the formation of an open economy.” He relayed the information of the customs operations centre. URUMQI, 18 December (Xinhua)
Translated from the Turkish original.