In the early morning of January 1, 2022, the opening ceremony of the first international freight train after RCEP came into effect was held in Nanning international railway port. Yang Chunting, director of the Department of Commerce of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Diao Weihong, deputy director of the Department of Commerce, Ding Wei, vice mayor of Nanning, he Xiangping, deputy general manager of China Railway Nanning Bureau Group Co., Ltd., relevant departments and representatives of railway operation, freight forwarder customs declaration and cargo owner enterprises attended the ceremony. At 00:05 a.m., the train loaded with goods left Nanning international railway port for Hanoi, Vietnam, which is the first international freight train to RCEP member countries since the RCEP agreement came into force.
In an interview, Yang Chunting, director of the Department of Commerce of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said that Guangxi is the only province in China that has both land border and sea channel with RCEP member countries, and it has unique advantages to carry out international logistics cooperation with RCEP member countries. In recent years, the construction of a new land and sea channel in the West has been accelerated, forming a new international land and sea trade channel of “sea, land and air” connecting the cross-border logistics system of RCEP member states in an all-round way and connecting the EU ASEAN. Wang Hongbin, deputy director of Yongzhou customs, said that after the implementation of RCEP, the superposition effects of rules of origin and customs procedures will significantly enhance the trade links among Member States, further improve the customs clearance timeliness of goods, and greatly save administrative costs and enterprise operating costs.
It is understood that the first international freight train of RCEP has 23 40 foot containers and 2 20 foot containers. The goods include general trade and cross-border e-commerce goods such as electronic components, daily necessities and chemical products, with a total weight of more than 800 tons and a value of more than 10 million US dollars. It arrived in Vietnam River 28 hours later.
At present, a complete sea, land and air international logistics system has been formed between Guangxi and ASEAN countries, with a variety of transportation modes and all-weather logistics capacity to RCEP countries. In terms of land transportation, the freight volume at Youyi customs port in Guangxi will exceed 3.8 million tons in 2021; Pingxiang railway port has more than 1900 international freight trains, an increase of 56%, including 346 direct container trains from Nanning international railway port to China and Vietnam, an increase of 108%. In terms of shipping, Beibu Gulf Port Co.Ltd(000582) has 274 productive berths and a comprehensive cargo handling capacity of 285 million tons. At present, Beibu Gulf Port Co.Ltd(000582) routes reach 311 ports in 106 countries and regions, including 64 container routes and 28 container routes to RCEP countries. Sea rail intermodal trains reach 91 stations in 47 cities in 13 provinces in China. Qinzhou Railway Container Central Station handled more than 300000 TEUs in 2021. As of 7:00 on December 31, 2021, Beibu Gulf Port Co.Ltd(000582) containers have exceeded 6 million TEUs, and the number of sea rail intermodal container trains has exceeded 6000. In terms of air transport, the cargo and mail throughput of Nanning Airport reached 123500 tons in 2021, including 23500 tons of international cargo and mail throughput, an increase of 118.95%, realizing a historic breakthrough and effectively promoting the economic and trade cooperation between Guangxi and ASEAN and other countries.
The opening of RCEP’s first international freight train is an epitome of Guangxi’s making good use of RCEP’s new economic and trade rules. As a gateway and window for China’s opening up and cooperation with ASEAN, the entry into force and implementation of RCEP agreement has brought significant new development opportunities for Guangxi’s high-level opening-up. The tariff and non-tariff barriers among RCEP member countries have been greatly reduced, the cumulative rules of origin have been implemented, the level of customs clearance facilitation has been further improved, the business environment has been further optimized, the advantages of the main channel of cooperation between Guangxi and RCEP member countries will be further consolidated, and the trade scale and cooperation level will continue to improve. (Xu Jianli)
(International Business Daily)
