DM Monitoring
URUMQI: As the train whistle blows, Zhang Zhihu watches a freight train with a red and yellow locomotive set into motion.
It is a daily routine for the veteran railway maintenance worker at Alataw Pass, a busy rail port in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Loaded with goods from China’s manufacturing hubs and bound for Malaszewicze in Poland, the train is known as a China-Europe freight train. It is expected to arrive in the transportation hub linking Central Asia and Europe about 10 days after its departure, at which time it will be the start of the Year of the Ox, the second sign in the Chinese zodiac cycle.
“For us, the new lunar year is likely to live up to its bullish and busy implications,” said Zhang.
Zhang’s optimism is not ungrounded. Largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the port has witnessed a year of galloping growth in China-Europe freight trains, a rail connectivity project initiated by China to boost exchanges with European countries.
Alataw Pass, which borders Kazakhstan, bested other railway ports in 2020 with a total of 5,027 freight trains passing through, surging 41.8 percent over 2019.
The total cargo volume soared nearly 65 percent year on year and the trade value climbed roughly 40 percent.
There are now about 14 freight trains passing through the port every day. The booming freight train service has lent steam to the port’s cross-border e-commerce business, which kicked off on Jan. 21, 2020.
