New Western Land-Sea Corridor Helps China-ASEAN Cooperation
"Played an important role in maintaining supply chain stability"
In the hinterland of western China, the new Western Land-Sea Corridor, which connects the Silk Road Economic Belt in the north, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in the south, and the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, which is a major transportation artery connecting with the Yangtze River Economic Belt, is surging with strong vitality.
With this channel, fruits, rice and fresh products from ASEAN countries can be quickly placed on the shelves of Chinese supermarkets, and products such as automobiles and spare parts produced in western China can also enter the Southeast Asian market as soon as possible.
Access to all directions, smooth flow of goods.
The new western land-sea corridor is not only a logistics channel, but also an economic corridor that promotes trade between China and ASEAN.
Construction of new land-sea passage in western China accelerates
"With the new Western Land-Sea Corridor, cargo ships start from Brunei's ports, stop in Singapore, and then go all the way from Singapore to Qinzhou Port in Guangxi. It is very convenient to transfer to the railway here to go to Yunnan, Sichuan, and Chongqing." Running a trading company Zheng Zuoliang, a Brunei businessman, introduced Brunei's shrimp chips, coffee and other products to the Chinese market, and at the same time introduced Chinese citrus and other products to the ASEAN market. reduce."
Taking Chongqing as the channel logistics and operation organization center, with Guangxi, Guizhou, Gansu, Qinghai and other western provinces as key nodes, using railway, sea, road and other transportation methods, southward through Guangxi to Southeast Asia and the rest of the world - this is the west New land-sea passage.
The construction of this channel has shortened the geographical distance between western China and ASEAN, as well as the trade distance between the two sides. It is a channel for logistics, trade and development.
In April 2017, Guangxi successfully opened the Qinzhou Port-Chongqing test train; in September, Chongqing opened the normalized rail-sea intermodal train to Qinzhou Port.
The successful operation of the two-way train has driven the engine for the rapid development of the southbound passage.
In November 2018, the southbound channel was officially renamed the "New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor".
From once a week to three times a week, and then to "every day", the frequency of rail-sea intermodal trains has continued to increase, making it the most convenient way to go to sea in the western region.
In August 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission of China issued the "Overall Plan for the New Western Land-Sea Corridor" to coordinate the construction of the new Western Land-Sea Corridor.
The 12 western provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, Hainan Province, and Zhanjiang City of Guangdong Province have fully integrated into the pattern of cooperation and co-construction.
In September 2021, the "14th Five-Year Plan to Promote the High-quality Construction of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor" was released, specifying that by 2025, an economical, efficient, convenient, green and safe new Western Land-Sea Corridor will be basically built.
The new western land-sea passage has "construction drawings" since then.
From scratch, from initiative to entity, the new Western Land-Sea Corridor has witnessed the continuous acceleration of China-ASEAN connectivity.
As of early December 2021, the rail-sea intermodal train has reached 42 ports in 8 ASEAN countries.
In 2020 alone, China-Vietnam cross-border trains will increase by 23.2% year-on-year.
Li Mingjiang, associate professor at the Rajaratnam Institute of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said that trade between western China and ASEAN mainly relied on ports in eastern China. , which will help strengthen trade, investment and logistics links between China's western region and Southeast Asian countries.
Western China accelerates toward the frontier of opening up
"From Chongqing, China to Jakarta, Indonesia, it takes more than 30 days to pass through the traditional river-sea combined transportation mode, while the new western land-sea channel controls the logistics time within 20 days, which not only improves transportation efficiency, but also reduces logistics costs for enterprises." Chongqing Xiaokang Jin Zhang Xingyan, general manager of the export company, said.
In November 2019, the ASEAN Cold Chain (Chongqing) Distribution Center was established in Jiangjin Comprehensive Bonded Zone.
Chen Xiang, sales director of Chongqing Hongjiu Fruit Co., Ltd., which is located in the bonded area, sighed: "By taking advantage of the cold chain 'hitchhiker' of the new western land-sea channel, the cost has been reduced by nearly 30%, and the fruits purchased from Southeast Asia are getting fresher and fresher."
With this large channel, more and more Chinese enterprises are going to ASEAN to invest and start businesses.
Dajiang Power Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd., located in Bishan District, Chongqing, will rearrange its logistics model in 2021, focusing on the Southeast Asian market, and now exports machinery products worth more than 4 million US dollars per month; Chongqing Xiaokang Industrial Group Co., Ltd. invests in Indonesia to set up factories; Zongshen Industry Group Co., Ltd. went to Thailand to lay out an international supply chain...
According to Bachuanjiang, Director of the Port and Logistics Office of the Chongqing Municipal Government, as of the end of October 2021, Chongqing has transported 82,848 TEUs to ASEAN through the new western land-sea corridor, accounting for 32.8% of the total transport volume of the entire corridor and 69% of the foreign trade container volume; The total value of goods transported is 25.64 billion yuan, accounting for 58.4% of the total value of goods transported by the channel and 80.4% of the total value of foreign trade goods.
Driven by the new western land-sea corridor, the trade between Chongqing and ASEAN has grown significantly, and ASEAN is currently the largest foreign trade partner of Chongqing.
The data shows that the four major foreign trade gathering places in western China, including Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guangxi, have increased their trade volume with ASEAN from 443.3 billion yuan in 2017 to 626 billion yuan in 2020, with an average annual compound growth rate of 12%. .
In the first eight months of 2021, the import and export of the regions along the new western land-sea corridor to ASEAN reached US$81.22 billion, a year-on-year increase of 28.7%, driving China's import and export to ASEAN to increase by 4.4 percentage points.
Behind the growth of data is a huge market driven by the construction of the new western land-sea channel.
In recent years, new mechanisms and new measures for the construction of the new western land-sea corridor have been continuously introduced and implemented.
Set up the logistics and operation organization center of the new western land-sea channel to comprehensively coordinate the planning and development of the channel and regional cooperation; set up the new land-sea channel operation limited company to unify the brand, unified rules and unified operation; carry out the pilot of the "one order system" for rail-sea combined transportation Entrusted "one-time insurance", "one-time insurance", "one-time settlement" and "one-time settlement" full-service model; launched China's first cross-border financial block chain western land-sea new channel financing settlement application scenario, and paid more than 1 billion US dollars for logistics enterprises in one year of operation ...one after another of innovative measures are further helping western China to accelerate its opening-up frontier.
China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation is increasing day by day
PIL (Singapore PIL) is one of the largest shipping companies in Southeast Asia.
At the end of 2018, PIL opened two routes from Qinzhou, Guangxi to Southeast Asian countries. Since then, it has been continuously upgraded and optimized. Currently, it is stably operating the "Qinzhou-Singapore-Thailand-Cambodia-Qinzhou" and "Qinzhou-Singapore-Vietnam-Qinzhou" routes .
The agglomeration of the China-ASEAN trade by the new western land-sea route can be seen on these two routes.
"During the fruit harvest season every year, durians, coconut greens, mangoes, bananas and other fruits in Southeast Asia are transported to Qinzhou by PIL ships, and then distributed to all parts of China." Zhang Songsheng, executive chairman of PIL, said: "Fresh goods are very important to The transportation speed requirements are very high, and the transportation efficiency cannot be guaranteed until there is no direct route.”
"At the same time, industrial raw materials, fertilizers, mineral products, etc. produced in Southwest China have also come to Southeast Asia and other countries and regions along the 'Belt and Road' along this channel. Among them, there are many high value-added products such as auto parts and solar panels. Local economic development." Zhang Songsheng revealed that in recent years, the cargo volume of PIL in Guangxi has grown rapidly.
"The formation of a multimodal transport system extending in all directions is accelerating. Especially during the epidemic prevention and control period, the new western land-sea corridor has played an important role in maintaining the stability of the supply chain." In Zhang Songsheng's view, the new western land-sea corridor connects not only the transportation network, but also the transportation network. There are ASEAN-China economic and trade cooperation, as well as cultural exchanges between the two sides.
More and more Southeast Asian enterprises have seen new opportunities for China-ASEAN cooperation through the new western land-sea corridor.
With the full operation of the China-Laos Railway, Zheng Zuoliang plans to bring Lao products to China.
At the same time, he is also studying the use of the new western land-sea channel to allow more ASEAN products to take the China-Europe train to Europe.
"The road is open, which means there are more business opportunities," he said.
In May 2021, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and other countries, together with 12 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in western China, Hainan Province, and Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, jointly released the "New Land-Sea Corridor International Cooperation (Chongqing) Initiative", which will promote international cooperation in many aspects. , to further highlight the interconnection effect of the new land-sea corridor.
Li Mingjiang believes that the industrial chain of Southeast Asian countries is closely linked with China, and the construction of the new land-sea corridor in the west will help the two sides strengthen the division of labor in the industrial chain.
On January 1, 2022, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into effect, and the new Western Land-Sea Corridor will play a greater role.
Our reporter Liu Hui Jiang Yunlong Chang Biluo