Transcontinental freight train services are becoming increasingly popular with Chinese and European traders as shipping and air transport are restricted by the Covid-19 epidemic. Sinotrans, a subsidiary of China Merchants Group, is operating several freight train services to Europe. It has already organized 54 freight train services between Shenyang in Liaoning province and European cities like Hamburg and Duisburg in Germany, Enns in Austria, and Malaszewicze and Warsaw in Poland so far this year. The company also launched cargo train services from Changsha in Hunan province to Moscow. The first train carried epidemic prevention materials, electro-mechanical equipment, shoes, toys, garments and plastic products to Moscow. The company plans to operate the services once a week and may raise the service to twice a week based on market demand. Thanks to growing demand, its transcontinental freight service frequency has grown by 38% on a yearly basis during the first quarter of this year.

Li Jianhong, Chairman of China Merchants Group, said epidemic constraints in several countries prompted the company to come out with Plan-B solutions such as raising the operational frequency of transcontinental train services and ocean-rail through services to facilitate exports by domestic exporters. Due to the pandemic, many container ports in Italy, Spain and Portugal have been temporarily shut down or are facing severe curbs on people and vessel movement, the Beijing-based China Chamber of International Commerce said. Container availability is dwindling sharply at major European ports like Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp, causing shipment problems for exporters from China and Europe, the Chamber said.

Apart from service suspensions and flight cuts imposed by European carriers such as British Airways, Lufthansa Group, Air France and KLM during the past two months, China’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC) has also cut the number of international flights in and out of the country to curb contagion via air travel and contain the rising number of imported infections. Because there is not much room for Chinese companies to lease cargo space in the passenger aircraft of domestic and European airlines, China Post Group Corp has started to use China-Europe freight trains for its postal services to Europe. One train is running from Yiwu in Zhejiang province to Poland, spending 13 days on the way and delivering over 200,000 items including mail, daily necessities and clothing to customers in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain via local delivery after arriving at Warsaw. Volvo Cars shipped 3,377 vehicles to Europe via 27 China-Europe cargo train services from Xian, capital of Shaanxi province, in the first quarter of this year, the China Daily reports.