A total of 20 container trucks loaded with medical supplies and daily essentials left Kashi in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to Kyrgyzstan on Sunday, marking the official operation of the multimodal freight transportation route linking Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Kashi, and Central and South Asia.
This batch of 220-ton supplies, worth some 12 million yuan (US$1.88 million), were transported to Kashi by train from Guangdong Province before they were further delivered to Kyrgyzstan by truck.
The Shenzhen-Guangzhou-Kashi-Central/South Asia multimodal freight combines rail and road transportation, where commodities gathered from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) will be sent to Kashi by train, which will run through Pinghu South National Logistics Hub, Guangzhou’s Zengcheng West Station, and Changsha, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Lanzhou and Urumqi stations. After finishing customs clearance in the Kashi Comprehensive Bonded Zone, the cargo will be transported to five Central and South Asian countries, including Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, by truck.
The Shenzhen-Guangzhou-Kashi freight railway route, which covers 5,800 kilometers, is operated by Shenzhen Yantian Port Group. It is one of the key projects in the 14th Five-Year Plan of Shenzhen’s Aid Work to Xinjiang.
Compared with sea routes, the multimodal freight transportation saves seven days, and each 40-foot container can enjoy a logistics fee reduction of 5,000 yuan, which is subsidized by the government.
The Shenzhen-Guangzhou-Kashi freight train service will operate four times a month and is estimated to handle 20,000 tons of freight a year. It will bring about 800 million yuan in trade volume to the Kashi Comprehensive Bonded Zone, according to Yantian Port.
Yantian Port Group is considering further using Kashi’s geographical advantages as a transportation hub between China and Central and South Asian countries, as well as developing the air-railway-road multimodal transportation to enhance its business link with Kashi.