The JadeWeserPort Wilhelmshaven freight village has welcomed its first direct container-laden train from the Chinese city of Hefei as part of its new position on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The train departed Hefei on 25 June with a volume of around 100 TEU, mainly household appliances as well as textiles and electrical goods, which will be distributed from Wilhelmshaven to the hinterland.
The operator of this new train connection is the state-owned port operating company Hefei International Land Port (HILP), which now also connects Germany’s only deep-water container port with Hefei as part of the BRI initiative.
The company’s core business is organising international freight transports with block trains to Central Europe and Central Asia. In addition, HILP also offers combined sea/rail transports between Hefei and the port of Ningbo as well as transport and logistics concepts specially tailored to customers’ needs.
The partner on the German side is DB Cargo Eurasia, which has already been operating on the Eurasian Corridor since 2008 to meet the transport demand for block trains and individual containers between China and Europe and which became a regular service in 2011.
DB Cargo Eurasia serves as DB operator and provider on the Eurasian Corridor and, together with DB Cargo Russia and DB Cargo Transasia, which is currently under development, forms the network of DB Cargo structures from the EU’s eastern external border, filling rail traffic within the DB Cargo network with volumes to and from China.
The transcontinental connections between China and Europe offer customers competitive and environmentally friendly transport alternatives, JadeWeserPort said.