Just halfway through 2026, the Yixin Europe China Europe freight train has delivered a performance far exceeding market expectations. The export scale of 84000 TEUs has reached a new historical high in the same period, with a year-on-year growth rate of 10.6%. Behind this is a strong trend of maintaining double-digit growth for six consecutive months. This steel camel caravan originating from Yiwu is becoming the most stable onshore artery for Zhejiang's manufacturing to go global.

High value-added categories support the main growth drivers

In the past, the carriages of Yixinou were filled with daily necessities and textile clothing, but now this export list has undergone a deep upgrade. The proportion of high value-added goods such as machine tools, new energy vehicles, photovoltaic modules and smart home appliances has rapidly increased, completely jumping out of the traditional positioning of small commodity distribution, and becoming the core logistics channel of Zhejiang Intelligent Manufacturing for co construction of the the Belt and Road countries.

The requirements for transportation efficiency and stability of high-value goods are much higher than those of ordinary goods, which has forced the train operation system to complete a targeted transformation, shifting from basic transportation capacity supply to customized services throughout the entire chain.

Mode and clearance upgrade in both directions

The Jinhua to Minsk boutique train, specially designed for high efficiency needs, has been launched. With the support of segmented control mechanisms both domestically and internationally, the entire transportation time is two to three days faster than regular trains. New combination modes such as railway public multimodal transport and sea railway multimodal transport have successively been launched, combining the advantages of long-distance railway transportation and the flexibility of road and sea transportation, reducing transit links and directly lowering the comprehensive logistics costs of enterprises.

The new generation of large-scale customs clearance platform put into use by Hangzhou Customs in Yiwu has achieved automatic customs transfer 24 hours a day, 7 times a week. The real-time closed-loop comparison of customs declaration forms, transfer forms, and logistics data enables even time sensitive goods that arrive at the port late at night or on holidays to be cleared in seconds. Keywords: China Europe freight train, cross-border freight train

At present, Yixin Europe has stable operation of 27 routes, covering more than 160 cities in over 50 countries and regions in Asia and Europe. As the smart customs reform continues to advance, this land channel, which has been deeply cultivated for many years, will also release more potential increments for cross-border trade.Editor/Cheng Liting