Land-sea trade corridor promotes foreign trade of western China

This aerial photo taken on April 3, 2023 shows a freight train departing from the Jiangjin District of southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, marking the opening of a new transport route via the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. (Xinhua/Tang Yi)

CHONGQING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- At the Nanpeng highway logistics base in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, a cross-border highway shuttle bus, carrying gasoline engines made in Chongqing, reached the Youyi Pass in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region within a day.

After about six more hours of travel, the shuttle bus reached Vietnam. The transportation time was greatly reduced thanks to the streamlined customs clearance at the pass.

"As one of the three logistics means of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, the cross-border highway shuttle bus has proven its advantages in terms of customs clearance efficiency and flexible arrangements under the joint support of the customs authorities along the route," said Zeng Yi, general manager of Chongqing Highway Transportation ASEAN International Logistics Co., Ltd.

Zeng added that the shuttle bus has also won the favor of more and more enterprises.

During the first six months of this year, the corridor handled more than 1.2 million such shuttle buses, a year-on-year 84.18 percent surge. International railway trains made 4,091 trips along the route, up 18.51 percent, while the cross-border rail-sea intermodal trains made 4,510 trips, up 9 percent year on year.

The triple growth in traffic volumes of the major transport means along the route is indicative of the corridor's significant contributions to the foreign trade development in western China.

In the first half of this year, the import and export value of the provincial-level regions along the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor totaled around 350 billion yuan (49 billion U.S. dollars), up about 40 percent year on year, said Chongqing Customs.

During the period, about 73 million tonnes of imports and exports were handled, up 16 percent year on year.

Local customs authorities in the regions along the trade corridor have teamed up to better facilitate customs clearance "green channels," in a bid to improve the connectivity along the route further, the customs added.

In the future, the customs authorities in western China also plan to link the trade corridor with the booming China-Europe freight train services and the golden waterway of the Yangtze River.

"The new trade corridor has provided us with a more efficient alternative, thus helping us to go global, and has greatly enhanced our competitiveness in the global market," said Wang Di, senior manager of the logistics department at Changan Automobile Co., Ltd., a leading vehicle manufacturer based in Chongqing.

Launched in 2017, the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor is a trade and logistics passage jointly built by provincial-level regions in western China and ASEAN members. The rail-sea intermodal service has expanded to cover 61 cities in 17 provincial-level areas in China.

Thanks to the trade corridor, an increasing number of products from China's inland provinces and regions along the route, such as Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region's red wine, and nuts from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, now have explored broader markets worldwide.

Meanwhile, Cambodian rice, Thai coconuts and mangosteens, and Vietnamese passion fruit and durians can reach the Chinese market through the trade corridor in just a few days.