After Economic-corridor linking Gwadar to China, another cargo train flags off to conquer European destinations

Chinese north-eastern city of Harbin is now linking with the German city of Hamburg from Saturday. Chinese officials said that the train will be another milestone achieved after linking the country with the world via Silk Road and Gwadar port in Pakistan under the project known as “Economic Corridor between Pakistan and China”.

Achieving the milestone

New cargo train from China to European destination in Germany will cover the distance of approximately 9,820 kilometers from Harbin to Hamburg.

This journey will take about fifteen days and the train will pass through Russia and Poland before it reaches Hamburg in Germany. It has been confirmed by the general manager of HAO Logistics Co., Ltd which is hosting the service as a joint venture with Chinese railways. It will run once a week and will return in approximately one month.

Cargo Train Schedules

The first train has left Harbin city on Saturday at 10 am. It was carrying 50 plus Chinese goods including auto parts and electronic goods from north east and north regions of China. The goods worth of more than $3 million transported to Germany, but in future, this train will transport goods from the Republic of Korea, and Japan to the European countries including Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland.

The Chinese government has plans to link six more cities of China with this rail network. These cities include Chongqing, Chengdu, Changsha, Hefei, Yiwu and Suzhou.

Critics:

Critics on this project said that the most of the track will remain idle in the most of the time of the year due to supply and demand issues on both ends. However, China is still building these kinds of projects in order to secure its future if something unexpected happens on the sea routes. Beijing has also shown the keen interest in these projects and taking full part to safeguard its industry.

What Europe says?

President of European Chamber of Commerce said that the train between Chongqing and Europe will primarily be used to move Chinese goods to Europe, however, it might be used vice versa, but it’s a fact that China plays carefully in trade and buys very little from Europe. Out of five trains from China to Europe, merely one will come back with European goods, the rest of the containers will return from Europe by sea cargo routes.