SCODA sees busier cross-border freight train service in first four months

A truck hauling containers passes the freight yard of the multimodal transport center in the China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) local economic and trade cooperation demonstration area in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Nov. 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

The China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao saw a much busier cross-border freight train service in the first four months of 2023, China News Service (CNS) reported.

The demonstration area handled 100 outbound and inbound cross-border freight trains carrying cargo worth about 140 million US dollars during the period, up 49.3 percent and 16.7 percent year on year respectively, statistics from Qingdao Customs showed.

On May 5, a special cargo train fully loaded with 110 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of plastic pellets and auto parts made in Republic of Korea (ROK) worth 1.4 million US dollars left the demonstration area, headed for Almaty, Kazakhstan within 14 days.

As local customs authorities have rolled out policies to facilitate freight train service, the freight trains just go through one-stop customs declaration and inspection in Jiaozhou Customs in Qingdao and can leave the Chinese border ports of Horgos and Alataw without stopping for further customs procedures, said Xu Yuejing, deputy director of Jiaozhou Customs.

It is noted that Shandong Province has gradually expanded the imports and exports to countries and regions along the routes of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the past decade, with the proportion in Shandong's total foreign trade increasing from 24.3 percent in 2013 to 38.9 percent in 2022.