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.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS