Belt and Road

Manzhouli, located at the eastern junction of the borders between China, Russia and Mongolia, which has a population of 300,000, is a century-old inland port city known as the “window of East Asia” in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It witnessed the boom of the early Chinese gold miners in Russia in the 1980s. Recently, it has been undergoing robust development, especially since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed in 2013.

The China-mongolia-russia Economic Corridor (CMREC), initiated in September 2014 during the first trilateral meeting of the heads of state of the three nations in Tajikistan, became the first multilateral cooperation plan to become part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Now, Manzhouli is linked to 28 international destinations by freight trains, and nearly 70 percent of trade between China and Russia passes through the port. In the first seven months of this year, 747 freight trains passed through Manzhouli carrying goods worth $3.15 billion, 25 percent more than those transshipped in the same period last year.

“We are integrating our plans with the Belt and Road development. We are of crucial importance to the northward opening up of Inner Mongolia,” Mayor of Manzhouli Xu Ailian told Xinhua News Agency.