RCG pushes rail logistics towards Far East and Central Asia
As the Chinese market offers enormous potential for goods transport to and from Europe, the Rail Cargo Group (RCG) is continuously expanding its long-distance connections – not only from China to Europe – but vice versa. On the occasion of the Prime Minister summit on the One Belt, One Road initiative in Budapest, the first transcontinental container train with Central European goods departed from the Rail Cargo Terminal – BILK to China.
The XiangOuExpress carries 45 containers with such goods as food, household appliances and spare parts for the automotive industry to the city of Changsa in the Chinese province of Hunan. The BILK terminal is the central hub in the RCG network between the maritime and transcontinental Silk Road, north-western and south-eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean ports.
The first train service from Hungary to China opened another chapter in the RCG internationalisation program. High-profile guests, including Chen Xiangqun, Head of the Trade Department of the Province of Hunan, HE Baoxiang, Governor of the Hunan Province and his 20-member delegation, as well as László Mosóczi, Deputy State Secretary for Transport in Hungary and Rail Cargo Group’s CEO Erik Regter, attended the departure of the first block train to China.
Shipments via the port of Piraeus are also booming: The Rail Cargo Group has long been using the BILK terminal to connect Central Europe with the maritime Silk Road through container transports to the Greek port of Piraeus and back for their customer China Cosco Shipping. By the autumn of 2017, 200 trains had already departed via the Balkan route and across the transcontinental corridors. This includes trains via the maritime Silk Road from Piraeus to BILK and across the transcontinental Silk Road through Turkey, Kazakhstan or Russia.
With the reorganisation of the transport flows on the Trans-Siberian and Asian routes, the Eurasian land bridge has an enormously high potential. More than 95 percent of the freight volume between Asia and Europe is currently being transported on the international sea routes by container ships. The Silk Road Initiative One Belt, One Road aims to strengthen rail freight transport on the Eurasian Corridor in the long term.