One of the world’s longest railways — a “modern-day silk road” — covers about 11,000km en route from the Chinese megacity of Chongqing to Duisburg, a key commercial hub in western Germany.
On Saturday, as part of his landmark visit to Germany, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited the last stop on the “Yuxinou” (渝新歐) rail line, an industrial feat that promises to revolutionize transport between Europe and Asia.
Duisburg is a steelmaking town of about half a million on the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers that boasts the world’s biggest inland port and is one of Germany’s most important transport and commercial hubs.
Photo: AFP
Despite the vast distances between them, it takes just 16 days for trains to travel to Duisburg from Chongqing, a sprawling metropolitan symbol of rising China with a population of more than 30 million.
Xi, accompanied by a large Chinese delegation and German Federal Minister of Economics and Energy and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, ceremoniously welcomed a freight train crammed with laptops and electronics after it completed its journey through Central Asia, Russia, Belarus and Poland.
Set up in 2011 by a group of rail companies, the Yuxinou is just 2,000km short of the world’s longest rail line that links Germany to Shanghai. It has shaved more than 20 days off the sea route.
The route is particularly useful for Chongqing — home to vast car parts and IT factories — since it lies 1,500km from China’s main seaports.
“The value of this rail link, known in China as the ‘new silk road,’ is more than just symbolic,” German Port of Duisburg spokesman Julian Boecker told reporters.
“It has found itself a position in the market and now operates up to three weekly services,” he said.
Yet one of the biggest challenges will be to boost traffic in both directions to make it more profitable. It is not uncommon for the Yuxinou trains, which can transport as many as 50 containers, to be full when they arrive in Duisburg, but empty when they return to China.
“At the moment, the amount of goods traveling from China to Europe is much larger than the other way round. That’s a problem,” market research group SCI Verkehr director Maria Leenen said.
It was sea transport that gradually supplanted the historic Silk Road trade route linking Asia with Europe centuries ago.
Sea transport still accounts for more than 95 percent of goods trading between the two regions, said Burkhard Lemper of the logistics consultants ISL.
Rail’s share of the market remains tiny, and for now, the Yuxinou link only complements existing transport systems.
Yet “rail is twice as fast as sea transport and twice as cheap as air freight,” said Erich Staake, head of the company that operates the Port of Duisburg.
For Leenen, “both sides benefit” from the link.
“Europe can meet a sudden surge in demand in industry or trade, say in textiles, while China can reach its markets more rapidly,” she said.
The link provides a welcome transport connection and gateway for Chinese provinces situated deep inside the country.
“It’s still early days yet for this mode of transport, but it could have a promising future if the conditions are right, notably in terms of safety and security, punctuality and a stable political situation,” Leenen said.
Other electronics companies, such as Foxconn (富士康) of Taiwan which supplies Apple Inc, or computer giant Acer (宏碁), as well as car parts suppliers and machine-tool makers, all have factories in Chongqing.
The Port of Duisburg hopes that the importance of the rail link will increase after Xi’s visit.
“We’re in negotiations with companies, such as automakers, on a possible expansion of the service,” Boecker said.
“There are people who aren’t aware that it even exists,” he said. “We hope to increase customers in both directions.”
China is Germany’s top trade partner in Asia, while Germany is China’s leading European partner. Bilateral trade exceeded US$161.5 billion last year.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
STILL HOPEFUL: Delayed payment of NT$5.35 billion from an Indian server client sent its earnings plunging last year, but the firm expects a gradual pickup ahead Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC vendor, yesterday reported an 87 percent slump in net profit for last year, dragged by a massive overdue payment from an Indian cloud service provider. The Indian customer has delayed payment totaling NT$5.35 billion (US$162.7 million), Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told an online earnings conference. Asustek shipped servers to India between April and June last year. The customer told Asustek that it is launching multiple fundraising projects and expected to repay the debt in the short term, Wu said. The Indian customer accounted for less than 10 percent to Asustek’s
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
LEAK SOURCE? There would be concern over the possibility of tech leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday stayed mum after a report said that the chipmaker has pitched chip designers Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Broadcom Inc about taking a stake in a joint venture to operate Intel Corp’s factories. Industry sources told the Central News Agency (CNA) that the possibility of TSMC proposing to operate Intel’s wafer fabs is low, as the Taiwanese chipmaker has always focused on its core business. There is also concern over possible technology leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺)
RSS