A new freight railway route connecting China’s eastern province of Jiangsu with Central Asian countries began operating on August 13, Kazakhstan’s The Astana Times reported on August 15, citing China’s Xinhua news agency reports.
The first cargo train departed from Wuxi, a city in southern Jiangsu province in East China. The shipment via rail track is projected to take nearly 20 days.
More than 1,000 goods, including household appliances and auto parts with a total cost of 4.4 million U.S. dollars, are heading to Uzbekistan through the territory of Kazakhstan.
The train will pass through the Lianyungang seaport, where the Kazakhstan logistics terminal has been operating since 2014.
Jiangsu is an eastern coastal province of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the third smallest, but the fifth most populous and the most densely populated of the 23 provinces of China. Jiangsu has the highest GDP per capita of Chinese provinces and second-highest GDP of Chinese provinces, after Guangdong.
The city of Wuxi is one of the key centers of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, which encompasses nine provinces (Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou) and two municipalities (Shanghai and Chongqing). Wuxi is a regional business hub, with extensive manufacturing and large industrial parks devoted to new industries. Historically a center of textile manufacturing, the city has adopted new industries such as electric motor manufacturing, MRP software development, bicycle and brake manufacturing, and solar technology, with two major photovoltaic companies, Suntech Power and Jetion Holdings Ltd, based in Wuxi.
