In the first quarter, Qingdao in East China's Shandong province operated 194 China-Europe freight trains, marking a year-on-year increase of 17.6 percent and ranking first in both quantity and growth rate within the province.

Currently, Qingdao has regular operations for 32 China-Europe freight train routes, connecting 23 countries and 54 cities within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Belt and Road Initiative.

Within the China-Europe freight train transportation network, consolidation centers in key cities or logistics nodes along the route serve as crucial hubs for cargo consolidation, transfer, and distribution.

In January, the Qingdao-Horgos-Atamyrat-Tashkent express train service was launched. A train loaded with spare auto parts departed from the multimodal transport logistics center in the China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area, heading towards Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

The train passed through the Atamyrat port for rapid transshipment, reducing the transshipment time from at least seven days in congested situations to just one day. This significantly shortened port clearance times and enhanced overall logistics efficiency.

Currently, there are 13 scheduled routes from the multimodal transport logistics center, including regular services for special routes such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Express and the Shandong-Europe Express.

Qingdao fully leverages its advantages as a major national logistics hub and is vigorously developing multimodal transport to help the logistics industry reduce costs.

In 2024, Qingdao Port opened 83 sea-rail intermodal train routes, achieving a sea-rail intermodal volume of 2.55 million twenty-feet equivalent units (TEUs) and maintaining the top position nationwide for 10 consecutive years. In the first quarter of this year, Qingdao Port's sea-rail intermodal container volume reached 675,000 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 11.8 percent.

The busy Qingdao Port in East China's Shandong province. [Photo/Guanhai News]