The China-Europe Railway Express Delivers Solid Achievements After Ten Years

As a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative and known as the “Steel Camel Caravan,” the China-Europe Railway Express will celebrate the tenth anniversary of unified operation under the “China Railway Express” brand in 2026. Recently, the State Council Information Office held a press conference, during which Liang Linchong, an official from the National Development and Reform Commission, released a series of authoritative operational data. After ten years of deep cultivation in building the Eurasian continental corridor, the China-Europe Railway Express has achieved breakthroughs across the board in operation scale, full-load efficiency, transportation timeliness, and trade value, emerging as the most stable and efficient land logistics trunk route for cross-border Eurasian supply chains, continuously injecting strong momentum into global international trade and regional economic cooperation.

Over its ten-year development, the China-Europe Railway Express has realized leapfrog growth in scale. Official statistics show that, to date, the cumulative number of trips has exceeded 130,000, with a total transported cargo value of over 520 billion USD. The railway logistics network spanning Eurasia continues to expand, fundamentally reshaping the traditional freight pattern between Europe and Asia.

Annual operation data further illustrates growth resilience: in 2016, only 1,702 trips were operated throughout the year, rising to 20,022 trips by 2025. Over the ten years, the average annual growth rate in the number of trips exceeded 30%, with total volume increasing more than tenfold. Currently, the total number of trips in a single month is equivalent to the total annual trips in 2016. The pace of capacity release continues to accelerate, and even in the face of global trade fluctuations and the variable international logistics environment, the railway maintains a steady upward trend, fully demonstrating the irreplaceable market value of land-based cross-border logistics.