In the days after the typhoon, bags of lithium ore processed products piled up higher and higher in the warehouse of a factory in Yiwu. The shipping schedule keeps changing, the sea freight is delayed, and the inventory of raw materials on the production line is bottoming out day by day. If we continue to delay, the machine will have to shut down. This anxiety once enveloped more than one enterprise in Yiwu and its surrounding areas.

The transfer occurred on September 8, 2026. A train loaded with lithium ore processing products started from Yiwu West Station and headed south, successfully arriving at Qinzhou East Station in Guangxi. The first domestic trade special train in Yiwu has been launched, a stable and efficient new channel for domestic trade transportation, which was quickly opened up in just a few days after the typhoon passed through.

Waterway interruption

Recently, due to extreme weather conditions such as typhoons, coastal shipping routes have been suspended or delayed, and the waterway transportation channels for lithium ore processing products produced by relevant enterprises in Yiwu have been interrupted. The key production materials cannot be transported out, and the production lines of hinterland enterprises face the risk of shutdown. The demand for emergency supply guarantee and logistics relief is very urgent. For enterprises, having fewer batches of raw materials means more pressure to shut down; For the industrial chain, if a link gets stuck, both upstream and downstream will tremble along.

Railway Relay

In the face of sudden difficulties, the Ningbo Zhoushan Port sea rail intermodal transportation team quickly responded and took the initiative to activate the logistics emergency support mechanism in the first time, accurately identified transportation congestion points, and tailored special supply and transportation plans for enterprises. Relying on the resource advantages of the Jinyi regional short haul logistics platform, the team efficiently coordinates and allocates transportation capacity, quickly completes the assembly, sorting, and transfer of stranded lithium ore processing goods, and concentrates the transportation of blocked goods to Yiwu West Station. At the same time, the team actively connected with the railway department, urgently coordinated transportation resources, finalized the plan for the operation of direct special trains, and maximized the overall transportation efficiency. If the goods wait one minute less, the enterprise will have one less risk.

Bidirectional Parallel

After the train arrives at Qinzhou East Station in Guangxi, it immediately connects with the highway to form a full chain closed-loop transportation of railway and highway, ensuring that production raw materials can reach the enterprise factory area at the fastest speed.

The significance of this special train is not just for emergency rescue. It is another vivid practice of deepening the construction of the sixth port area, leveraging the advantages of the multimodal transport system, and providing precise services to hinterland enterprises in Ningbo Zhoushan Port. As an inland port area far away from the dock berths, the Sixth Port Area has advanced port, customs, shipping, information, management and other services to the hinterland of central Zhejiang, implementing a customs clearance mode of one declaration, one inspection, and one release, allowing Yiwu, which does not rely on the sea, to complete the procedures for going out at home and shorten the customs clearance time by half. Since the first sea rail intermodal train departed in 2009, the cumulative business volume of the Yiwu Ningbo Zhoushan Port route has exceeded one million TEUs, and then the container to shipment volume of Yiwu (Suxi) International Hub Port has exceeded 200000 TEUs in just one year. This channel has been growing.

This extension of services from foreign trade to domestic trade means that a new logistics model of two-way parallel and diversified collaboration between import and export and domestic trade has officially taken shape. For key production enterprises in the hinterland, the resilience of the supply chain is further enhanced; For ports and railways, emergency supply of raw materials under extreme weather conditions has also accumulated replicable logistics practice experience.Editor/Yang Meiling