Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporters Chen Qiangwei, Lu Fengbao) news: Early on the morning of August 11, 2023, the way to the Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park was gradually crowded with container trucks, which, according to our driver, is the common destination for all those container trucks.

Photo taken on August 11, 2023 shows China-Europe freight trains ready to depart from Chongqing Xinglongchang marshalling station in Shapingba District, southwest China's Chongqing municipality. (Photo by Shiliuyun- Xinjiang Daily/ Tang Yong)

Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park, with a planned area of 35.5 square kilometers and a planned expansion area of 40.5 square kilometers, is the center of Chongqing’s four-way channel and the founding and starting point of the China-Europe freight trains and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. It is also the location of the Chongqing Railway Port and Chongqing Railway Bonded Logistic Center, a land port type national logistics hub and a national backbone cold chain logistics base.

These well-known names impressed the reporters when they saw the huge "0" sculpture on the zero landmark square in Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park. This sculpture is engraved with the introduction and route map for the China-Europe freight trains (Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe) and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor.

Urumqi, Alashankou and Horgos, these familiar cities of northwest China’s Xinjiang, are listed on the map and linked to Chongqing, a city thousands of kilometers away from Xinjiang, because of the China-Europe freight trains (Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe). In the past ten years since the Belt and Road Initiative was put forward, an incinerating number of “manufactured in China” products have been going out through ports in Xinjiang.

In the Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park, container trucks are lined up to enter the Chongqing Railway Port, Tuanjiecun Container Center Station and other places. Although there are few passers-by on the road, it still presents a busy scene.

Colourful containers pile up like mountains, orange gantry cranes operate constantly, shipping trucks go back and forth endlessly and trains whistle melodically; these images and sounds depict the picture of Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park connecting to the world.

“When I first came to work here in 2014, the neighborhood was crowded by small mountain villages, and I didn’t even dare to think it could be developed into what it is now.” Luo Shuquan, deputy secretary of the Party committee and chairman of the supervisory board of Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park Construction Co, Ltd., said that at the time, there were not many open lines and ports here, but now there is a logistics hub park with four open corridors linking the eastern, western, southern and northern part of China, and it has three major clusters of logistics, trade and finance. In 2022, the park’s railway ports operated 280,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEU) of goods for foreign trade with a value of customs clearance reaching 80 billion yuan, ranking the first inland railway port in China.

Speaking of these achievements, we can’t help mentioning Tuanjiecun Railway Station, where the first international train departed from China's Chongqing Municipality to Duisburg, Germany in 2011. Nowadays, Tuanjiecun Railway Station is not the small station in the past, but has developed into an important one covering an area of 2,023 mu, with 12 arrival and departure lines, 16 cargo lines, and cargo transport operations in 110 countries and regions.

At the Tuanjiecun Railway Station, you can see a sculpture of a blue China-Europe freight trains container, and the words “Belt and Road” are especially conspicuous. “Over the years, the number of containers shipped from this station has continued to increase, and the transport revenue has also witnessed a steady growth,” Wang Yiqi, deputy manager of the Tuanjiecun Railway Station, Xinglongchang Station of China Railway Chengdu Group Co, Ltd., said.

In 2022, the total number of China-Europe freight trains (Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe) exceeded 3,100, an increase of nearly 70 times compared with 2013, and the volume of shipments increased by 157 times, with more balanced go-and-return time and a significant improvement in the quality of driving.

As the sweltering heat wave rolls and the sun burns at Chongqing in August, the sun-tanned porter Huang Wei, who has been working in the Tuanjiecun Railway Station for almost four years, is carrying a number of goods from Yiwu with his colleagues.

When talking about the changes the Belt and Road Initiative has brought him, Huang Wei said with a smile, “I don't know about those big theories, but I only know that the goods I've handled over the years are increasing. So does my income.”

Focusing on the idea “channels drive logistics, logistics drives economy and trade, and economic and trade drive industry”, Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park is committed to the integration of industry and city construction, and has achieved significant results in transforming the hub advantage into industrial advantage. Today, there are a total of 18 Fortune 500 enterprises, 8 domestic top 500 enterprises and 17 listed companies, and the total number of resident enterprises exceeded 5,400. In 2022, the annual revenue of enterprises in the park is about 125 billion yuan.

Luo Shuquan said that the park will further accelerate the construction of channels, ports and industries to meet the needs of Chongqing to build an international consumption center. It is hoped that the park will continue to deepen its cooperation with Xinjiang in terms of channels and industries, and jointly promote the construction of the Belt and Road.

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