Ten years ago, a whistle pierced through the morning mist of Lingnan, and the Guangzhou Europe freight train sailed from here towards the distance. Nowadays, this steel silk road has been woven into a network from a single line, loaded with intelligent manufacturing in the bay area, crossing mountains and seas, and laying out a picture of the era of goods connecting the world between the Eurasian continent.

Steady growth in operational scale over the past decade

From August 2016 to July 2026, the import and export value of China Europe freight trains at Guangzhou Port exceeded 110 billion yuan, covering more than 20 countries and regions in Europe and Asia.

The scope of China Europe freight train cooperation continues to expand. The two major stations under the jurisdiction of Guangzhou Customs, Guangzhou International Port and Nansha Port South Station, have opened 24 operating routes, including 17 outbound and 7 inbound routes, serving more than 20 countries in Europe and Asia. Compared with the situation that there was only a single export route, a single exit port and a limited variety of goods at the initial stage of opening up, at this stage, Guangzhou China Europe Express has opened up three major transportation channels in the west, middle and east of China, and seven major ports, Manzhouli, Erenhot, Alashankou, Khorgos, Suifenhe, Pingxiang and Mohan, have been operating in a coordinated manner, forming a transportation layout extending in all directions.

Structural optimization, continuous innovation of business formats

The volume of freight trains continues to rise, and the structure of freight commodities continues to improve. In the early years, most of the exported goods were labor-intensive products such as clothing, shoes, and toys. Nowadays, electronic products, new energy vehicles, and precision machinery have become the main export categories. The export of smart home appliances and complete vehicles has shown strong growth momentum. Since 2026, Guangzhou Customs has supervised a total of 3480 cars exported by China Europe freight trains, and the value of smart home appliances such as coffee machines is about 2.4 billion yuan. Among the export goods of China Europe freight trains at Guangzhou International Port, high value-added goods have accounted for 70%, "said Cheng Jie, head of the Customs Supervision Department at Guangzhou Station.

Various emerging business models are constantly enriching their channel functions. Represented by the Guangzhou International Port China Europe Express, the transportation of goods has expanded from ordinary goods to specialized train models such as cross-border e-commerce and international postal parcels. The cross-border e-commerce special train has achieved normalized operation, and the value of e-commerce goods shipped in the first seven months of 2026 is nearly three times that of the whole year last year. Railway transportation is synchronized with highways and ocean shipping to establish a mature multimodal transport system. Keywords: China Europe freight train, 10th anniversary, multimodal transport

The continuous improvement of the railway network, coupled with the implementation of customs support policies such as fast railway clearance and import domestic freight deduction, has effectively activated the return cargo market, resulting in a significant increase in import freight volume. In the first seven months of 2026, the number of return imported standard containers at Guangzhou International Port accounted for nearly 30% of the total number of shipped standard containers.Editor/Gong Ziwei