A TRAIN fully loaded with diverse goods departed last Saturday morning from Xi'an, the capital city of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, bound for Malaszewicze, Poland, marking a significant milestone as the total number of China-Europe freight train trips surpassed 90,000

To date, China-Europe freight trains have transported more than 8.7 million TEU of goods, valued at US$380 billion, according to China State Railway Group Co, Ltd, reports Xinhua. From 2016 to 2023, the annual number of China-Europe freight train trips surged from 1,702 to over 17,000.

The value of goods transported by this service skyrocketed from US$8 billion in 2016 to US$56.7 billion in 2023. The types of goods transported on the China-Europe freight trains have expanded from IT products such as laptops and printers at the beginning to over 50,000 different types, including clothing and footwear, automobiles and parts, daily necessities, food, timber, furniture, chemicals and machinery.

Since 2023, an increasing number of Chinese-made "tech-intensive green trio" products - lithium-ion batteries, photovoltaic products, and NEVs - have been transported through the China-Europe freight trains, reflecting strong market demand, said China State Railway Group Co, Ltd. So far, the China-Europe freight trains have reached 223 cities in 25 European countries and over 100 cities in eleven Asian countries, with the service network covering almost the entire Eurasian continent, it added