Fujian is the core area of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. As an essential province, Fujian is taking the lead in building a land-sea connectivity system, promoting the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Sea-rail transport reduces the transit time from the approximately 40 days required for full-sea freight to less than 20 days, helping Xiamen expand into BRI markets. As such, it is particularly advantageous for goods that must stay fresh or be delivered quickly, said Ou Xiaoping, the port service department manager of Xiamen C&D Haicang Bonded Logistics.
Thus far, depending on the multimodal transportation, the Silk Road Maritime Alliance has 317 member units and 116 named shipping routes and connects 131 ports in 43 countries and regions.
It has made more than 12,000 voyages, with the total container throughput exceeding 14 million TEUs, while the Silk Road shipping e-commerce express line has seen a throughput exceeding 30,000 TEUs.
Six cities in Fujian province have opened China-Europe freight services. The Xiamen-Taiwan-St Petersburg sea-rail intermodal transport route has gradually become a new logistics passage for intermodal transport crossing the Taiwan Strait and spanning Eurasia.