Recently a train loaded with hair products, non-woven fabrics, and other goods produced in Shaoyang departed from Shaoyang East Freight Yard along the Huaihua-Shaoyang-Hengyang Railway and headed for Guangdong's Nansha Port. The goods will be transported to Africa by sea. It meant that Shaoyang launched its first rail-sea intermodal freight train to African countries, opening up a new foreign trade channel.

The Hunan-Guangdong-Africa rail-sea intermodal transport service serves as one of the five international logistics channels of Hunan Province. Since the first rail-sea intermodal freight train was launched on September 15, 2021, Hunan has handled more than 58,000 TEUs of goods by 710 such freight trains.

Shaoyang is one of the five functional clusters in the pioneering zone for in-depth China-Africa economic and trade cooperation. The city has been actively developing the African market. Over the past decade, Shaoyang's trade with Africa registered an average annual growth of 29%. In 2023, a total of 196 Shaoyang enterprises established trade ties with African countries. The trade volume ranked third in Hunan and reached 6.16 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.9% and 13.2 percentage points higher than the provincial growth rate.

The new rail-sea intermodal transport service can greatly lower export costs for Shaoyang enterprises, reducing 52% of freight charge in the Shaoyang and Zhuzhou section and 59% in the Zhuzhou and Nansha section. It will facilitate Shaoyang enterprises' efforts to tap into the African market and expand their global reach.

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

Translator: Xiao Juan

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn