Northeast China's Jilin province saw 2,796 standard containers transported by China-Europe freight trains in the first quarter of this year, up 36.3 percent year on year.
The increase was partly attributed to the unstable maritime transport between China and Europe in Q1. So far, the transportation of goods like electronic products and auto parts made by Japanese and Korean enterprises via the Changchun-Manzhouli-Europe railway have remained steady, despite the impact of COVID-19.
"We strengthened the contact with domestic and foreign customers and timely informed the logistics delivery process during the epidemic period," said Wang Yue, chairman of the Changchun International Land Port Development Co., Ltd., which operates the cargo trains on the route.
As an important project for Jilin to join the construction of the Belt and Road, the Changchun-Manzhouli-Europe cargo train line was launched in 2015.
The route starts from Jilin's capital Changchun, exits China via Manzhouli, the largest land port on the China-Russia border, and passes through Russia, Belarus and Poland before arriving at the terminus of Nuremberg, Germany. It measures more than 10,000 km, and a single trip usually takes 14 days, saving more than 20 days compared with sea transportation.
