A container rail service connecting the Chinese landlocked Heilongjiang province with Dalian port has been launched.
Liaoning Port Group, which manages the majority of the ports in Liaoning province, announced that 45 containers were successfully railed from Heilongjiang’s Zhaodong county to Dalian port in late February.
The containers were then shipped from Dalian, Liaoning’s main container port, to Japan, South Korea, Denmark and Brazil.
Liaoning Port Group arranged the rail-to-sea freight service to solve the logistical challenges facing Heilongjiang’s grain processing industry.
Due to Heilongjiang’s proximity to the Russian Far East, a number of containers tend to be shipped from Russian ports.
However, the COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting slowdown in economic activity disrupted container movements from Heilongjiang.
The rail-to-sea freight service runs on Mondays and Fridays, with the goods being loaded first at Zhaodong railway station, and then labelled at Harbin South railway station before being moved to Dalian port.
The service shortened the transportation time from Zhaodong to Dalian port to less than 24 hours, compared with three days previously.
Liaoning Port Group estimates that the rail-to-sea service can transport 800TEU a month.
The group said that the Zhaodong-Dalian service is its first to target exports, adding that it hopes to roll out similar services to other Heilongjiang cities.
Like other Chinese ports, Liaoning Port Group is offering discounts to mitigate COVID-19’s impact on the shipping industry.
On 28 February 2020, the group announced that port fees will stay halved from 10 February to 30 April. Fees were originally halved from 24 January to 9 February.
Martina Li
Asia Correspondent
