Shiliuyun/Xinjiang Daily (reporter Chen Qiangwei, Lu Fengbao) news: On August 18, 2023, one of the Xinjiang Daily “Road of Prosperity—Belt and Road Reporting Project” interview teams came to the Yiwu bonded logistics center in Yiwu Bonded Logistics Park and met an enterprise with deep ties to Xinjiang.

Photo taken on August 8, 2023 shows an employee of Zhejiang Yiluhang International Supply Chain Co., Ltd. handles goods destined for Europe. (Photo by Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily/Chen Qiangwei)

After hearing that the reporters have come from Xinjiang, Ren Zhenzhen, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Yiluhang International Supply Chain Co., Ltd., said, "Our enterprise is a wholly-owned subsidiary of an enterprise in Xinjiang, and has settled down in Yiwu due to Yiwu’s investment attraction," believing that they have been brought together by fate.

This unexpected information stirred reporters’ appetites, making them wonder how did that happen.

Ren Zhenzhen told reporters with some pity that the general manager, who is familiar with the cause and effect, was away on a business trip, and they could only wait for him to return before making an appointment for an interview.

With curiosity, on August 21, 2023, reporters came to Yiluhang company again and met Sheng Yaofeng, the general manager of the company.

Sheng Yaofeng said that in 2021, Yiwu City attracted investment to the Truck Flight Transit Center. At that time, Xinjiang Shengda Truck Flight Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. was a cross-border logistics and transportation enterprise with rich experience in road transportation to Central Asia and Europe.

"Yiwu is a center place of goods supply, and Xinjiang has many ports, hence our cooperation can be said to be a hit-it-off." Sheng Yaofeng said that in 2022, Shengda Truck Flight settled in Yiwu Bonded Logistics Park, established Zhejiang Yiluhang International Supply Chain Co., Ltd., and built Yiwu Central Warehouse. After centralized consolidation and transportation in Yiwu, shipments get to Central Asia, Europe and other places through ports in Xinjiang, completing the whole transportation service from the source place to the importers.

Truck Flight Transit Center is a truck flights consolidation center built by Yiwu City focusing on Eurasia, with a total area of about 34, 2oo square meters. In March 2022, the first Truck Flight Transit Center in central Zhejiang was officially put into operation. At present, 6 enterprises such as Zhejiang Yiluhang International Supply Chain Co., Ltd. have been introduced to settle in, and the freight routes cover China to Europe, Central Asia and South Korea.

"Having settled in Yiwu has changed the shortcomings of Shengda’s goods supply in ports in Xinjiang, and it has also extended the company's service routes, supporting Shengda to a new stage of development, " Sheng Yaofeng said.

In Sheng Yaofeng's view, Shengda's “going out” from Xinjiang is a key move for the company's third transformation. The development of the enterprise over the past 20 years says everything about the development and changes of Xinjiang foreign trade enterprises.

In 1998, Sheng Yaofeng's parents’ generation came to the Urumqi Frontier Hotel Trade Market to do foreign trade business, catching up with the last train in the most prosperous period of Xinjiang's foreign trade.

"But after a few years, seeing that there were fewer and fewer foreign buyers in the market, we decided to make transformations." Sheng Yaofeng said that with the advantages of Central Asian customers and channels accumulated over the years, the company turned to international freight forwarding business in 2010, which was the first transformation of the enterprise.

With the increasing demand of customers for cross-border transportation, in 2015, Sheng Yaofeng's family enterprise built its own customs supervision warehouse at Bhaktu Port, covering an area of more than 50,000 square meters.

"More than two years after the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed, our international freight forwarding business developed so well that leasing warehouses can no longer meet the development needs." Sheng Yaofeng said that the hardware conditions are good with the company's shipment time more guaranteed, which is the second transformation.

Nowadays, with the in-depth advancement of the "Belt and Road" Initiative, the competition in the international logistics and transportation industry has intensified, and more detailed services have become the magic weapon for enterprises. As a result, Zhejiang Yiluhang International Supply Chain Co., Ltd. came into being.

"In the past, we waited for goods at the ports in Xinjiang, but now we take the initiative to move the warehouse to Yiwu, where all the goods are." Sheng Yaofeng said that this is more in line with the characteristics of truck flights.

Truck flight is an emerging logistics method that uses high-performance trucks to transport goods across borders. For the same destination,the time that truck flights take is half of that of railways and less than the third of that of sea freight, but the price is only one-third of that of air freight, and there are fewer restrictions on transporting goods.

"The fastest truck flight from Yiwu to Germany took only 13 days," Ren Zhenzhen said.

Nowadays, in order to pursue fast, Sheng Yaofeng's enterprise has a new development direction. "We are building a customs supervision warehouse in Kazakhstan, and by then, there will be a new breakthrough in the speed of our logistics," Sheng Yaofeng said.

Ports in Xinjiang have outstanding advantages, from the perspective of cross-border logistics and transportation, the construction of front warehouses near the port is very attractive to some enterprises with high timeliness requirements.

Sheng Yaofeng traveled frequently during this time, one to find supply, and the other to negotiate cooperation, preparing to build several more central warehouses.

"In the near future, we also plan to take some customers to ports in Xinjiang to see if it is possible to land the production line in Xinjiang." Sheng Yaofeng said that he has made some calculations for customers, if production and export are conducted at Xinjiang’s ports, the cost of goods will be reduced by about 30% to 40%.

Looking back on the development of the enterprise, Sheng Yaofeng concluded with a smile: "We started from border trade, based on Xinjiang, developed to places outside Xinjiang, and now we are even making investments abroad. All these transformations and development are inseparable from the construction of the 'Belt and Road'. ”

(A written permission shall be obtained for reprinting, excerpting, copying and mirroring of the contents published on this website. Unauthorized aforementioned act shall be deemed an infringement, of which the actor shall be held accountable under the law.)