A China-Europe freight train fully loaded with goods and destined for Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan recently departed from the Multimodal Transport Center in the SCO Demonstration Area. The 863rd train this year to date marks that China-Europe freight trains from SCODA have made the same number of trips as they did throughout last year. Since the beginning of this year, China-Europe Railway Express has been gaining momentum in the SCODA, with a cumulative total of 843 trains in the first nine months, a year-on-year increase of 16.6%.

Beyond an increasing number of new routes, a constant surge in return trips is another key driver of rapid progress in China-Europe freight trains from the SCODA. “This year, we start to regularly transport millfeed and wheat from Kazakhstan in return trips. Return trips accounted for 40% of the total number of trips in the first nine months so that freight trains were fully loaded in both outbound and inbound trips”, said a person at the helm of Shandong Hi-Speed Qilu Eurasia Railway Logistics Co., Ltd.

To date, the SCODA has opened 32 regular freight train routes at home and abroad, which give Qingdao access to 54 cities in 23 SCO member states or countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, and compose an international logistics channel that is connected with Japan and South Korea eastward, Europe and Asia westward, Mongolia and Russia northward and ASEAN countries southward. (Wang Meng)