Multimode transport powers growth
China’s pilot free trade zones are stepping up efforts to tap the potential of multimodal transport as part of a broader push to facilitate foreign trade and pursue highstandard opening-up.
Experts and industry insiders said these endeavors will produce more institutional innovation and help replicate the experience to regions outside pilot free trade zones.
It will also help China in aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules and facilitate the construction of a new dualcirculation development pattern that keeps the domestic market as its mainstay while letting domestic and foreign markets reinforce each other, they said.
Multimodal transport integrates sea, railway, road and airbased transportation channels.
China started exploring the idea of multimodal transport about 15 years ago, but its application hastened only after the development of pilot free trade zones 10 years ago, said Zhang Dan, director of the Institute of Industrial Internationalization Strategy that is part of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing.
The value of foreign trade in Sichuan province, for example, exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($139 billion) last year, giving it a ranking of eighth in the country and first among the central and western regions.
Liu Wenwei, an official of the China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone, said the huge combined value of imports and exports was achieved by just 7,000 foreign trade companies in the province, and that is largely attributable to the rapid growth of multimodal transport.
“Sichuan is not close to the sea or the national border, and its exports and imports of highend products, including chips, largely rely on air freight,” Liu said, adding that the volume of products shipped by the China Europe Railway Express is also quickly increasing.
Shipments by air accounted for about 62% of the province’s imports and exports by value last year, and the corresponding figure for water transport was 30%, Liu said.
Products shipped by rail freight accounted for about 3% of Sichuan’s imports and exports by value last year, but in terms of volume the figure is much larger, he said.
Over the past five years more than 22,000 China-Europe Railway Express trains have run on the Chengdu-Chongqing route. In the first half of this year the figure was 2,700, 30% more than last year.
Multimodal transport helps promote the growth of new foreign trade business formats, including cross-border e-commerce and marketplace procurement, because it enables companies in Sichuan to sell directly to foreign customers.
Zhou Feng, an executive with Qingdao Port, which is part of the China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, said about 65% of goods headed for sea transport from the Yellow River region depart from Qingdao Port, and during the first half of this year the port transported 115 million twenty-foot equivalent units of cargo.
“Through years of endeavor in developing multimodal transport, in particular sea-rail combined transport, Qingdao Port is becoming the most important and convenient outlet to the sea in the Yellow River basin,” Zhou said.
The examination of goods for import and export can be completed efficiently in advance even before they arrive at the port, enabling their departure within three hours of arrival, Zhou said.
Exports departing from some inland ports are declared at their jurisdictional Customs outlets without undergoing Customs clearance at Qingdao Port once again.