Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe freight trains exceed 3,000 trips

Train X9216 departs from Jinhua, Zhejiang province, to Central Asia on Dec 30. [Photo/Tide News]

A China-Europe freight train departed from Jinhua in Zhejiang province on Dec 30, marking the province's 3,000th such service in 2025.

The X9216 service left Jinhua bound for Central Asia. With that departure, the China-Europe freight train service operated by Zhejiang — widely known as the Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe route — reached 3,000 trips in 2025, up 14.8 percent year-on-year, according to local railway and logistics authorities.

This year, Zhejiang's China-Europe freight trains accelerated the rollout of overseas logistics hubs, adding two new distribution centers in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and Russia. With the new facilities now in operation, the total number of overseas hubs has risen to four, extending the service network to more than 160 cities across 50 countries in Europe and Asia.

In February, an international express freight train linking Yiwu and Tashkent was launched. Through digital integration of consignment note systems, transit times between the two cities were reduced to six to eight days, down from 10 to 12 days previously.

In June, the country's first China-Europe freight train using a trans-Caspian corridor — running from Jinhua to Baku — made its inaugural trip. Combining rail and sea transport, the new route cuts overall transit time by one day compared with traditional transport modes.

Longer-term data highlight the scale of expansion. Since the first Zhejiang China-Europe freight train departed on Nov 18, 2014, cumulative services have exceeded 14,900 trips as of Dec 30 this year, with more than 1.22 million twenty-foot equivalent units shipped in total.