The train, carrying mostly textiles from Western Chinese city of Chengdu, will arrive in Hamburg via the China-Europe Railway Express. The goods will then travel by sea to its final destination, Morocco’s Port of Casablanca. Morocco is a strategic location because of its proximity to Europe and the Middle East. Morocco was well placed for Chinese export manufacturers to reach African markets, and that they also could gain access to ports on the western Mediterranean and Atlantic. Morocco mainly exports calcium phosphate, raw copper and zinc ore to China, while primary Chinese exports to Morocco are tea, pile fabric and broadcasting equipment.
In October, 2022, a goods train carrying 50 containers of apple juice concentrate left Tianshui in northwestern China’s Gansu province for Cape Town, South Africa. The cargo will travel via train from Gansu to the port of Qingdao in eastern China, before sailing to Cape Town. Gansu is also an important production base for beef and mutton, as well as a vital supplier of vegetables for eastern China.
Technical advancements such as refrigerated containers have helped make the transport of goods via rail/multimodal networks feasible and faster.
The hybrid nature of the links acted as insurance – “if one passageway gets blocked, there is a second”.
The train connects poorer or more remote western China to world markets along the Eurasian peninsula. The seabound trade route leaves from China’s established coastal economies educing inequality within China.
On September 15 last year, a train carrying 1,935 tonnes of aid to Africa departed from China’s Zhuzhou Logistics Base to Nansha port in southern Guangdong province, from where the shipment arrived by sea in Nairobi, Kenya, the journey marking the launch of the Hunan-Guangdong-Africa rail-sea transport channel. Compared with past alternatives, the transport time was shortened by eight to 12 days and costs reduced by 60 per cent, the council said.
Chinese government provided generous subsidies for these routes, making it difficult to assess their economic viability or profitability yet. This shows the socialist character of BRI.
Author: Saikat Bhattacharya
