China's sea-rail intermodal freight volume reached 7.58 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first five months of this year, up 11 percent year on year, national railway operator China State Railway Group said on Sunday.
During the January-May period, bookings reached 47,000 TEUs for the country's single-bill multimodal transportation services that allow businesses to use one unified transport document for the entire journey across trucks, trains, and ships, eliminating the need for separate bills of lading for each leg of the trip.
The growth comes as railway and customs authorities are stepping up their efforts to optimize shipment to reduce transport inefficiencies.
Freight trains departing from Baoding, a city in north China's Hebei Province, now carry full loads to Qingdao, a port city in east China's Shandong Province, for export, returning with industrial raw materials such as wood pulp boards to supply local factories.
"The return train from Qingdao to Baoding operates twice a week, solving a long-standing pain point in traditional sea-rail transit where trains often returned empty. We have now achieved full cargo loads in both directions," said Wang Dong, marketing manager at China Railway Beijing Group's Beijing Logistics Center.
Under the single-bill multimodal transportation model, railways work closely with customs departments to streamline regulatory procedures. By integrating automated customs tracking with multimodal transport systems, authorities have cut overall shipping times by three days and reduced logistics costs for trade companies by approximately 15 percent.
"As a multimodal transport application now replaces traditional transit documents, goods can complete all customs formalities at the Beijing-Xiongan-Baoding International Smart port in a single stop, eliminating secondary declarations and inspections at the port and allowing direct port loading upon arrival," said Ren Zhiping, head of Baoding Customs.
In the same period, total cargo moved through the railway logistics network, which offers point-to-point intercity lines, cold-chain shipments, and door-to-door deliveries with the support of main rail roads, surged 102.2 percent year on year to 200 million tons.
China's sea-rail freight volume up 11 percent in Jan-May period
Top political advisor Wang Huning has called for high-quality construction of the demonstration zone for integrated development across the Taiwan Strait and urged greater progress in advancing such integration during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030).
Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks on Saturday in Xiamen, a city in east China's Fujian Province, at a meeting on advancing the demonstration zone's development.
He said the 15th Five-Year Plan period will bring broad opportunities and prospects for deepening cross-Strait integrated development and for promoting the development of the demonstration zone.
Wang called for supporting Fujian in exploring new mechanisms, pathways and models for cross-Strait integrated development, and for promoting higher-quality, deeper and broader integration in cross-Strait integrated development.
He stressed the need to implement the requirements of the 15th Five-Year Plan in developing the demonstration zone and to ensure high-quality development throughout the process.
Focusing on key tasks in building the demonstration zone, efforts should be made to boost policy and institutional innovation, and to let the zone take the lead in piloting new measures and generating replicable experience, Wang said.
He also called for improving policies and measures to facilitate cross-Strait exchanges and cooperation, enhancing the business environment, strengthening industrial cooperation, and expanding the benefits and sense of gain for Taiwan compatriots and Taiwan-funded enterprises.
Wang urged closer people-to-people and cultural exchanges across the Strait, saying that more efforts should be made to strengthen Taiwan compatriots' sense of identification with the Chinese nation, Chinese culture and the motherland.
He also called for expanding channels for Taiwan youth to pursue development on the mainland.
On Sunday morning, Wang also conducted an inspection tour in Xiamen, reviewing work on cross-Strait integrated development, as well as the provision of more convenient and intelligent services for Taiwan compatriots, and efforts to promote exchanges and cooperation among young people from both sides of the Strait.
Top political advisor urges solid progress in cross-Strait integrated development
