The second China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (CAETE) was held in Changsha from September 26 to 29. Chinese and African exhibitors spoke highly of the denser logistics network between Hunan and Africa when negotiating cooperation during the expo.

In recent years, Hunan Province has made great efforts to expand international logistics channels with Africa. On September 15, the Hunan-Guangdong-Africa Rail-Sea Express Train was officially launched. Cargos of the first train are expected to arrive at Mombasa Port in Kenya on October 15. In the future, wigs, mechanical and electrical products, construction machinery, textiles and garments produced in Hunan will be exported to Africa through the multimodal transport channel. The return seagoing vessel and train will be loaded with African coffee beans, cocoa, red wine, dried chili peppers, and nuts.

Guo Ning, director of the Office of Port Administration of the Hunan Provincial People’s Government, said that the new channel helps solve the problems of low efficiency and high costs of logistics transportation between Hunan and African countries. The channel will cover 11 hub ports in Africa, and 20 inland roads and railways in Africa in its first phase. Compared with conventional ship route, the channel can shorten the transport time from Hunan to East Africa by 10 days, and to West African base ports by 9 days.

Besides, Hunan has two routes from Changsha to Kenya’s Nairobi and Angola’s Luanda. Now the Hunan-Shanghai-Africa rail-sea transport channel and Hunan-Africa multimodal transport channel are under construction.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn. 

Translators: Xiao Juan

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn