Over 1,600 China-Europe Freight Train Trips Run from SCODA to Central Asian Countries
On May 12, the first commercial special train of the China-Europe Freight Train (Qilu) "SCO Express" departed from SCODA Multimodal Transport Center. The train will exit through Khorgos port and is expected to arrive in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 16 days.
As a gateway on the Eurasian continent, in recent years, Shandong has actively leveraged the location and transportation advantages of opening up through links across land and over the sea, running eastward and westward, actively served and integrated into the construction of the "Belt and Road", strengthened the construction of SCODA at a high level, and constantly expanded the fields of cooperation with the Central Asian countries, making the road to opening up wider and wider.
Enhance the Construction of Channels with Rail Transport Accounting for over a Half
In Linyi, goods purchased from the market can be easily transported to Central Asian countries via the China-Europe Freight Train. On May 12, a China-Europe freight train equipped with five containers of export goods purchased from the market such as hardware tools left the Zhubao station of Linyi Jinan Railway Logistics Park and finally arrived in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Guo Wenchao, Chief of the Port Supervision Section of Linyi Customs Mall, introduced that in recent years, the customs has innovated the customs clearance supervision mode of "market procurement + China-Europe Freight Train" according to the characteristics of "small orders, miscellaneous goods, and multiple varieties" for market procurement exports, helping small commodities in the old area enter the markets of Central Asia and other countries more conveniently.
In recent years, Shandong has continued to strengthen the construction of trade channels in Central Asia, and constantly expand and enhance the routes and quantities of China-Europe freight trains to and from the five Central Asian countries, leading to increasingly close trade with the five Central Asian countries. Data show that in the first four months of this year, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were the top two trading partners of Shandong in the five Central Asian countries, accounting for 58.6% and 29% of the total value of Shandong's imports and exports to the five Central Asian countries in the same period respectively. Yantai, Qingdao, and Linyi rank in the top 3 in import and export trade with the five Central Asian countries, accounting for about 60% of the province's import and export value to the five Central Asian countries. From the perspective of transport mode, Shandong's foreign trade with the five countries in Central Asia was 4.36 billion yuan in railway transport, accounting for more than 50%, and the value of goods through water transport and road transport has increased significantly.
Recently, the "Ou Li" tanker loaded with 131,000 tons of Kazakhstan crude oil slowly entered Yantai Port and docked at the crude oil terminal in the West Port Area. Customs officers quickly carried out on-site inspection and sampling of the crude oil. The imported crude oil is directly sent to large refining and chemical enterprises in Weifang and Dongying through the Yantai-Zibo oil pipeline.
According to the statistics of Qingdao Customs, in the first four months of this year, Shandong's import and export value to the five Central Asian countries reached 8.08 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 19.3%. From the perspective of the type of goods, Shandong exported 3.56 billion yuan of mechanical and electrical products to the five Central Asian countries, an increase of 44.1%, accounting for more than 50% of the total export value. Imports from Central Asia mainly include crude oil and agricultural products, accounting for more than 70% of the total value of imports.
Expand Investment and Technology Export, Shandong Enterprises Seeking Presence in the Central Asian Market
"Pump Set 1 and 2 are operating normally. Proceeding to the next section immediately." At 9 am on May 15, the operation and maintenance service team of Kerui Oil and Gas Company was carrying out routine equipment maintenance inspection for customers at the site of Aktau oil region in Kazakhstan. This equipment was put into use in 2013 and has been running continuously for more than 10 years. Its working condition is still sound and stable, thanks to the series of operation and maintenance services provided by Kerui Oil and Gas.
Sun Fuying, head of the Kazakhstan region of Kerui Oil and Gas Company, said that the inspection will last for one month to provide equipment maintenance, fault handling, upgrading, and other services for local oil and gas operation equipment. In the inspection process, from the operating efficiency and the overall working condition of the equipment to each indicator parameter and each screw, everything will be carefully repaired, to achieve the best state of the equipment.
Up to now, Kerui Oil and Gas has carried out extensive business in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and other countries and regions. In order to improve efficiency, Kerui Oil and Gas has also established oil and gas equipment service centers and spare parts warehouses in major oil and gas operations in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and has realized resource interconnection through a complete marketing service network.
While exporting services and technology, Shandong enterprises are also actively investing in Central Asia. In 2017, Shouguang's Shandong Lisente Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. began to build a thin film greenhouse in Uzbekistan and has built more than 1 million square meters of greenhouses in the local area, with an annual output of about 100 tons of vegetables per hectare.
Wang Shoubo, Chairman of Lisente, said that the vegetables produced by the company in Uzbekistan are mainly supplied to the Russian and European markets. This year, in addition to further expanding its investment, Lisente also plans to provide farmers in Uzbekistan with tomato seeds, seedlings, plant management, marketing and other production services.
The relevant person in charge of the Foreign Economy Department of the Provincial Department of Commerce introduced that in recent years, the pace of investment and presence of Shandong enterprises in Central Asia has accelerated year by year. In 2022, Shandong's actual investment in the five Central Asian countries reached 3.573 million USD and 2.089 million USD in the first quarter of this year.
Leverage SCO Platform to Expand Cooperation with Central Asia
Recently, Qingdao Tianji Yunjin International Trade Co., Ltd. imported a batch of 107.5 tons of cotton yarn worth about 240,000 USD from Uzbekistan through the Uzbekistan Commodity Exchange (hereinafter referred to as "UZEX").
As one of the four largest commodity and raw materials exchanges in the world, the main business of UZEX is the export of materials such as cotton, non-ferrous metal and chemical fertilizer, and the import of building materials, light textiles, machinery, electrical appliances, food and other commodities needed by Central Asian countries.
At the end of 2021, the Qingdao Branch of UZEX was established in Qingdao. "Based on SCODA, we will further facilitate the coordination with Shanghai, Guangzhou, Urumqi, and other cities, and give full play to the function of the platform and the advantages of SCODA in policy, industry, and logistics. It will become a cross-border trading platform integrating multi-functional and comprehensive services such as import and export product trading, technology transfer and service, product information release and display, warehousing and logistics, and corporate training." introduced Xiong Xuehua, Business Manager of Qingdao Asia-Europe Trade Service Co., Ltd., the operator of UZEX Qingdao Branch. In the first four months of this year, Qingdao Asia-Europe Trade Service Co., Ltd. took advantage of the platform of UZEX to complete the commodity turnover of more than 13 million yuan through the two ways of enterprise commissioned services and direct imports.
Leveraging SCODA and other national high-level opening-up platforms, Shandong's cooperation with Central Asian countries in trade, investment, and other fields has been gradually deepened. Since its establishment in 2018, SCODA focused on "building platforms, innovate models, gathering industries and strengthening entities", built the "four centers" of international logistics, modern trade, two-way investment cooperation, and the exchange and development of business, tourism and culture and the China-SCO Institute of Economy and Trade, actively promoted economic and trade exchanges between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries and countries along the Belt and Road, and accelerated the building of a new platform for international cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. According to statistics, since 2018, more than 1,600 China-Europe freight train trips have been run from SCODA to Central Asian countries, with more than 130,000 TEUs of import and export containers and a total cargo weight of more than 1.1 million tons.