Just when it seemed like the industry was getting used to a 10,000-kilometer rail journey as a commercially viable mode though which to ship 21st century freight, DHL Global Forwarding (DHL-GF) unveils a new long and winding iron road from China to Europe with an even unlikelier twist: Two water hazards.
\nIn December 2015, DHL-GF inaugurated a rail-to-sea-to-rail southern corridor route that is the newest part of the Silk Road Economic Belt, created under China\u2019s ambitious \u201cOne Belt, One Road\u201d project, which is expected to carry more than US$2.5 trillion worth of international trade within the next decade.
\nOn this new route, westbound railcars carry cargo from Lianyungang, China, through Kazakhstan and cut to the southwest toward the shore of the Caspian Sea, where intermodal containers are off-loaded to ships and sailed to Baku, Azerbaijan, on the far shore. There, the containers are reloaded onto railcars, sent through Georgia to the Black Sea port of Poti, where they meet yet another ship that sails the cargo to Istanbul, Turkey. Once in Istanbul, the containers are sent on by truck or by rail to various points across Europe. Total transit time should average 14 days, DHL said.
\nIf the project sounds complicated, that\u2019s because it is (click on this GIF image for greater clarity). The rail corridor is also backed up by a \u201ccontingency trucking service\u201d between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey via DHL-GF\u2019s three existing services via its North and West multimodal corridors, which most recently expanded to connect Taiwan with Europe via China.
\nMost notably, this new southern route avoids crossing through Russia entirely. Is this to avoid older Russian railway infrastructure \u2013 including low bridge crossings that prevent double-stacking intermodal containers \u2013 or to avoid more potential political fallout from the policies of Russian leader Vladimir Putin?
\n\u201cNegotiating the complex transnational requirements that span the Silk Road Economic Belt is no easy task,\u201d said Kelvin Leung, CEO, DHL Global Forwarding Asia Pacific. \u201cIt requires a deep understanding of the varying regulatory and infrastructural conditions in each market, robust partnerships with local-market experts and authorities, and experience in brokering cross-border connections without compromising on overall speed and efficiency.\u201d
\nTo bring the rail\/sea deal to life, DHL signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy Express (KTZ Express), Kazakhstan\u2019s national multimodal operator, to provide the critical rail link through Central Asia. DHL also worked closely with China, Azerbaijan and Georgia Railways; with the governments of all three countries; and with Karvan Logistics and RTSB Logistics.
\nDespite the complexity of the undertaking, DHL says there is still strong demand for a land cargo route through the region. \u201cTrade between China and countries along the Silk Road has grown 19 percent every year on average for the past decade,\u201d said Steve Huang, CEO, DHL-GF, China. \u201cTurkey already counts China as its second-largest source of imports, and the EU as its largest export market.\u201d
\nSuch Eurasian rail projects began about six years ago, with the pioneering efforts of forwarders DB Schenker and DHL-GF. Today, there are many similar containerized rail services on the same Silk Road tracks being operated by top forwarders and integrators, such as Panalpina, Kuehne + Nagel, Kerry Logistics, UPS and UTi.
\nSource: aircargoworld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just when it seemed like the industry was getting used to a 10,000-kilometer rail journey as a commercially viable mode though which to ship 21st century freight, DHL Global Forwarding (DHL-GF) unveils a new long and winding iron road from China to Europe with an even unlikelier twist: Two water hazards. In December 2015, DHL-GF[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":855,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-airport-code"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}