The German JadeWeserPort Wilhelmshaven freight village welcomed on 13 July the first direct train from the Chinese city of Hefei.
The train departed Hefei on 25 June and was handling a volume of approximately 100TEU, with goods such as household appliances, textiles and electrical goods, which will be distributed from Wilhelmshaven to the hinterland.
The new train connection was operated by the Chinese port operating company Hefei International Land Port (HILP) which specialises in organising international freight transports with block trains to Central Europe and Central Asia.
HILP now also connects Germany’s only deep-water container port with Hefei, as part of the “One Belt One Road” or “Belt and Road” initiative (BRI), a transcontinental long-term policy and investment program unveiled in 2013.
This initiative aims at infrastructure development and acceleration of the economic integration of Asian, European and African continents and their adjacent seas. Currently, 71 countries are taking part in the global initiative BRI.
On the German side, the partner in the new connection is DB Cargo Eurasia, which has already been operating on the Eurasian Corridor since 2008, in order to meet the transport demand for block trains and individual containers between China and Europe and which became a regular service in 2011.
Anhui Province and the State of Lower Saxony in Germany have been cooperating for more than 35 years. Other contributors for the new connection are DB Cargo Russia, DB Cargo Poland and DB Cargo Intermodal Sales.
