The multimodal transport center in Qingdao City of east China's Shandong Province has dispatched 449 China-Europe freight trains since the beginning of this year, shipping over 46,900 containers, a year-on-year increase of 29.2 percent, according to the local railway authorities.
Located in the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area in Qingdao, the center serves as a transportation platform covering railway, sea, air and land ports to connect more than 50 cities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members and countries along the Belt and Road routes.
Officials of the local railway authorities said they have optimized the customs procedures to improve transport efficiency.
"By collaborating with the customs authorities, we've piloted a single-document clearance procedure for the multimodal transport. This allows companies to complete the entire (customs clearance) process with a single declaration, which significantly improves the work efficiency and reduces costs," said Gao Yitian, a division head of the Jinan Railway Logistics Center.
The transportation hub of the SCO cooperation demonstration area has handled a total of 4,954 China-Europe freight train departures and arrivals since the area was officially established in 2018, with the daily throughput peaking at 2,000 standard containers.
"We've launched a direct dispatch model for China-Europe Express trains here in the demonstration area. That reduces the departure preparation time by one hour for each train, which effectively improves our efficiency. Since the beginning of this year, more than 100 trains have operated under the point-to-point direct dispatch approach," said Jiang Bo, head of the Jiaozhou Station under the Jinan Railway Bureau.
Transport hub of SCO demonstration area reports more freight train services to Europe
