On October 28, the signing ceremony and press conference of China Brilliant Group’s ‘the Belt and Road’ China Europe Train business cooperation was held in the conference hall of Four Seasons Hotel. China Brilliant reached strategic consensus with the Ministry of Railways of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Railways of Belarus and DHL Global Freight China Headquarters on operation, freight consolidation and cooperation, and officially launched the Peng-Eu Railway freight train project under the witness of Zheng Yanling, Secretary-General of Shenzhen Logistics and Supply Chain Management Association and other guests. Liu Qingsheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee, met with the guests at the Civic Center before the signing ceremony on behalf of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee.

During the talks, Liu Qingsheng extended a warm welcome to international friends from afar. He said that Shenzhen, which is located in the center of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, is currently giving full play to its advantages in geography, commerce and popularity, focusing on transportation connectivity, economic and trade cooperation and people to people and cultural exchanges, vigorously developing the circulation economy, and building a strategic hub of the ‘the Belt and Road’. The opening of the Shenzhen-Europe railway freight train project will become the common well-being of countries along the ‘the Belt and Road’.

It is understood that the route planning of the Shenzhen-Europe Railway Freight Train Project starts from Shenzhen to Hamburg, Germany, starts from Shenzhen customs clearance, passes through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland to Germany, and radiates Italy, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and other European countries. After the project is put into operation, Shenzhen will be connected with the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the ASEAN region, the central and western regions of China, and the vast number of inland countries along the Eurasian continent. Shenzhen will further give play to its advantages in sea rail intermodal transport, serve the national ‘the Belt and Road’ strategy, link German Industry 4.0 with Made in China 2025, and promote the steady growth of foreign trade and industrial upgrading. The project is being promoted and initiated by China Brilliant Group to establish an operation platform, and DHL Global Freight will be the first partner of China Brilliant to experience this fast and convenient strategic channel.

At present, the international mainstream trade mode is still dominated by sea and air transport, but the opening of the international railway train will undoubtedly create a new trade channel and further build Shenzhen into an Asian freight forwarding center for multimodal transport by sea, land and air. Zhang Chunhua, chairman of China Brilliant Group, pointed out that: ‘Shenzhen-Europe railway freight train is a stable, safe, fast and convenient strategic channel, which not only provides a channel for the export of goods in the Pearl River Delta, but also provides a choice for the transit of goods in ASEAN countries such as Vietnam and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The train will greatly improve the comprehensive efficiency of China’s cross-border transportation, and also help Shenzhen enterprises to accelerate the capital flow rate, improve the goods turnover rate, reduce inventory, and improve the international integration of Chinese products Competitive.

Linkage of sea and air transport, faster docking with German industry 4.0

Shenzhen has a number of local products with international competitiveness and independent intellectual property rights, which are highly compatible with the product positioning of the China-EU train in terms of industry and product characteristics. Zhang Chunhua stressed that ‘with the opening of Shenzhen-Europe Express, Shenzhen can not only integrate and sort out the freight resources, link the advantages of existing ports and airports, radiate other provinces, cities and regions, but also further activate the potential and vitality of Shenzhen existing railway transportation, and improve the international layout of existing logistics in a wider range and wider region’.

According to statistics, in 2015, the total import and export value of Shenzhen to the EU was 240.11 billion yuan, up 1.4% from the previous year (the same below). Among them, exports to Europe amounted to 191.06 billion yuan, up 3.2%; Mechanical and electrical products are the largest export commodities. In 2015, Shenzhen exported 141.92 billion yuan of mechanical and electrical products to the EU, an increase of 5.1%, accounting for 74.3% of the export value of Shenzhen to the EU in the same period, including 20.06 billion yuan of automatic data processing equipment and its components, and 5.41 billion yuan of mobile phones.

Compared with the characteristics of long shipping time and high air freight costs, railway transportation is safe and relatively reasonable. The China-Europe railway freight train is applicable to the import and export of high-end equipment, electronic products, industrial equipment, automobile and other parts, high-end products, disaster relief materials, fresh food, seasonal goods, small high-value goods and other products with high value, which is a useful supplement to maritime and air transportation.

At the same time, the Shenzhen-Europe Express also effectively docked with German Industry 4.0, helped make in China 2025, and promoted the industrial upgrading of the Pearl River Delta, which is of great significance to the future economic development of China, Germany and Europe.

Promote foreign trade, stabilize growth and improve the urban function of Shenzhen

In the interview, Zhang Chunhua pointed out: ‘According to the statistics from China Brilliant Group, DHL Global Freight and member enterprises of Qianhai and Supply Chain Industry Association, the annual export volume of Shenzhen-Europe Railway is about 13000 containers, with a total export value of nearly US $28 billion; the annual import volume of about 5600 containers, with a total import value of about US $4.6 billion.’ In view of this, the annual import and export value of Shenzhen-Europe Railway will reach about US $32.6 billion, It will contribute more than 10 billion yuan to foreign trade-related taxes (tariffs, value-added tax, consumption tax, stamp tax, income tax, etc.). This will be another vivid case of ‘promoting economic growth through circulation reform’.

After the implementation of the project, Shenzhen will further deepen its inherent advantages as an entrepot trade center city, build an Asian freight forwarding center for multimodal transport by sea, land and air, and promote the deep integration of industrial chain, supply chain and value chain; Let Shenzhen become the core node of the ‘the Belt and Road’ strategy, and further expand the breadth and depth of exchanges with cities along the line. In addition, the project will also promote the development of strategic emerging industries, and play a sustained social benefit in the promotion of urban functions.

Deepen international production capacity cooperation and share the world economy

At the signing ceremony, Erjan Khulakov, the representative of the Ministry of Railways of Kazakhstan, and Artur Ballardt, the representative of the Ministry of Railways of Belarus, were full of expectations for the opening of the ‘Shenzhen-Eu Train’. Deepening cooperation with China Brilliant Group in logistics, warehousing, foreign trade, e-commerce, finance and other fields will undoubtedly further promote economic and trade exchanges and investment cooperation between China (Shenzhen) and countries along the China-Europe Train. As an important carrier carrying the exchanges and cooperation between the two sides of economy and trade, the ‘Shenzhen Europe Train’ will accelerate the economic, trade and cultural exchanges between China and countries along the ‘the Belt and Road’.

With the continuous expansion of Internet plus strategic influence, cross-border e-commerce has become an important way of multilateral trade in the future. Shenzhen cross-border e-commerce is at the forefront of the times, but the development of logistics has not been rapidly developed with the rise of e-commerce. On the contrary, the traditional logistics link has become a major obstacle to the development of cross-border e-commerce. With the opening of the ‘Shenzhen-Europe Train’, it will break the logistics bottleneck that restricts the development of cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen, overcome the impact of uncontrollable events, natural weather and other factors, and promote the trade between Shenzhen and relevant target markets in Europe.

Since the opening of the first China-Europe railway freight train – ‘Chongqing New Europe’ in 2011, the number of China-Europe railways has been increasing, and the economic and trade exchanges with Eurasia have become increasingly frequent, resulting in more abundant trade results. As of the end of June 2016, China Europe regular train has accumulated about 17 billion US dollars in China’s total import and export trade, which has promoted the total trade between China and countries along the ‘the Belt and Road’ to 26.1% of the total national trade, bringing important impetus to the economic development of countries along the line.

In the future, with the deepening of the layout of the ‘Shenzhen-Europe Express’, Shenzhen, as the transshipment center of the entire Pearl River Delta and even Southeast Asia, will achieve the development goal of a major international port city faster. With the development of the railway freight agglomeration effect, the China-Europe train will also be further equipped with a safe, efficient, convenient, fast, green and environment-friendly supply chain service platform, and further integrate the resources and allocation of market factors to improve the comprehensive service of supply-side factors; From the micro perspective, it is a sorting out of Shenzhen circulation pattern; From a macro perspective, it will become another major channel and new bridge for the world’s shared economy.