In the 15th week, the China-Europe freight train operated relatively smoothly. Compared with last week, the efficiency of transloading at the four major ports has declined. The average transloading at Alashankou and Khorgos took about 3-5 days, and the waiting time for reloading at Erenhot recorded to be more than 12 days. According to statistics, the number of trains departing from Chongqing, Chengdu, and Xi'an to Duisburg and Hamburg in Europe remains the same as last month, with an average transit time of about 18 to 20 days; Trains departing from Hefei, Chongqing, Zengcheng, and Xi'an to Moscow and St. Petersburg in the Russian direction have arrived smoothly, with an average transit time of about 12-14 days, and only a few routes have seen a mild delay exceeding 20 days. In addition, according to the notice issued by overseas agents that a strong wind had hit the border of Kazakhstan recently, which may prolong the workers' operations significantly. We will follow the up-dates closely.

The spaces are still available in mid to late April at platforms such as Xi'an, Zhengzhou, and Changsha in the direction of the European line; The spaces on public trains from Chengdu can only be arranged until the end of the month, and the number of customized trains has been reduced to 12 per month; Changsha plans to dispatch two trains every month, which would take Khorgos as the transit stop instead of Erenhot, and the cargoes can be unloaded in Brest. The overall plan for the Central Asian direction train is relatively tight, and the spaces were already full in April. Spaces of May are open to public at major platforms at this moment. In terms of the Russian route, the market demand is still relatively sluggish. Last Friday, Xi'an significantly lowered their booking price, with a drop of over 12%. Given that the Xi'an has a considerable market share, the market reacts immediately, and the spot freight rate fluctuate a lot. It remains to be seen whether platforms such as Hefei, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Chongqing will correspondingly lower their booking prices thereafter.

Recently, provinces and cities such as Beijing, Hebei, and Hubei have expanded new routes and more Russian-bound services have been added; At the same time, Henan, Tianjin, Xinjiang, Gansu and other regions are also actively engaged with their the Central Asian-bound trains.

Article source: Cargo Talk