Giant Leap for Mankind

Over the last five years, the belt and road initiative has made significant progress in inclusive development

every day, freight trains depart fully loaded with containers from Yiwu City in east China’s Zhejiang Province, which is known as “world’s largest supermarket.” Trains travel more than 13,000 km before arriving in Madrid, Spain, where European consumers have easy access to goods produced in Yiwu. Meanwhile, the trains returning to China bring products such as French wine, German beer, Dutch biscuits and Polish fruit juice, all of which are gaining popularity among Chinese consumers.

Back in March 2011, the first China-europe freight train departed from Tuanjie Village Station in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality for Duisburg, Germany. The journey is three times faster than shipping routes, and costs one-fifth that of airfreight.

Since these international trains - and many others - have been put into operation, freight has seen an increase. As of the end of August, China-europe freight trains have traveled more than 10,000 times, serving 43 cities in 15 European countries, with an average cargo load of 85 percent.

These new rail lines are an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative, put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. While some countries are upholding protectionism, China, for its part, seeks to revive the legacy of historic trade routes by transforming them into a modern example of inclusive growth and transcontinental cooperation.

Five years on, more than 100 countries and