River-sea shipping line linking Sichuan, Hubei and Taiwan to be launched
A RIVER-SEA intermodal shipping line connecting the Yangtze River city of Luzhou in Sichuan province and Wuhan in Hubei province will be launched by the end of this year, Xinhua reports.
With the new service, Sichuan products, such as auto parts, mechanical or electronic products, will be shipped to Wuhan on smaller vessels and then be loaded onto larger near-sea ships for Taiwan, moving goods nearly four times faster door to door.
Luzhou port, being the only river port in the region to offer sea-rail intermodal service, is an important port for trade cargo in the mid-west region. Last year, it handled 135,200 TEU, taking up 84 per cent of Sichuan's total.
There is already a shuttle shipping service in operation between Luzhou and Wuhan. The service ran 302 sailings last year, carrying 37,200 TEU, up 45 per cent year-on-year.
According to Wuhan's Changjiang (Yangtze) Daily, shipments from mid-west China have to transit via Wuhan and then Shanghai before arriving in Taiwan. But after the new service is launched, it will take only seven days from Wuhan to Taiwan's Taichung or Kaohsiung.
Water transport is cheaper from Sichuan to Taiwan at CNY1,200 (US$195) per TEU against the rail rate from Wuhan to Shanghai of CNY3,200 (US$521.7), said a Wuhan port official.
However, the service is facing a problem according to Changjiang Daily. There must be sufficient shipments. If there's not, the vessel will have to stop over at Nanjing and Shanghai to fill itself. This will take much longer time.
But as there are no direct shipping service from Wuhan to Taiwan, the service can still hopefully attract shipments by exempting the shippers' need to have their cargo transit via Shanghai or Shenzhen.
A RIVER-SEA intermodal shipping line connecting the Yangtze River city of Luzhou in Sichuan province and Wuhan in Hubei province will be launched by the end of this year, Xinhua reports.
With the new service, Sichuan products, such as auto parts, mechanical or electronic products, will be shipped to Wuhan on smaller vessels and then be loaded onto larger near-sea ships for Taiwan, moving goods nearly four times faster door to door.
Luzhou port, being the only river port in the region to offer sea-rail intermodal service, is an important port for trade cargo in the mid-west region. Last year, it handled 135,200 TEU, taking up 84 per cent of Sichuan's total.
There is already a shuttle shipping service in operation between Luzhou and Wuhan. The service ran 302 sailings last year, carrying 37,200 TEU, up 45 per cent year-on-year.
According to Wuhan's Changjiang (Yangtze) Daily, shipments from mid-west China have to transit via Wuhan and then Shanghai before arriving in Taiwan. But after the new service is launched, it will take only seven days from Wuhan to Taiwan's Taichung or Kaohsiung.
Water transport is cheaper from Sichuan to Taiwan at CNY1,200 (US$195) per TEU against the rail rate from Wuhan to Shanghai of CNY3,200 (US$521.7), said a Wuhan port official.
However, the service is facing a problem according to Changjiang Daily. There must be sufficient shipments. If there's not, the vessel will have to stop over at Nanjing and Shanghai to fill itself. This will take much longer time.
But as there are no direct shipping service from Wuhan to Taiwan, the service can still hopefully attract shipments by exempting the shippers' need to have their cargo transit via Shanghai or Shenzhen.