Up by 10.6% year-over-year, Qingdao Port's rail-sea intermodal container volume exceeded 500,000 TEUs in the first two months of this year.

(Source: China Water Transport Network)

Transferred from: China Water Transport Network

On March 26, reporters learned from Qingdao Customs that in the first two months of this year, Qingdao Customs supervised 512,000 TEUs in sea-rail intermodal transport at Qingdao Port, a year-on-year increase of 10.6%, demonstrating the strong momentum of the international logistics corridor.

On March 24, a train loaded with water pump parts and auto parts directly arrived at Qingdao Port in Shandong through railway transport from Zhengzhou Inland Port. Under the sea-rail intermodal model, import and export goods seamlessly connect railway transport with coastal shipping, achieving “one declaration, one inspection, one release.” As a core transportation method in international logistics, it saves over 30% in costs compared to road-water intermodal transport for distances over 600 kilometers, reduces the transport cycle by nearly one-third, lowers the cargo damage rate by 80%, and also avoids the cumbersome process of multiple document flows in segmented transport.

“Apart from cost savings, the stability of sea-rail intermodal transport is a key advantage.” Dai Xuechao, manager of the sea-rail intermodal center at Shandong Port Logistics Group’s Qingdao International Logistics Co., Ltd., explained that traditional road transport is greatly affected by road conditions, with complicated procedures for port cutoff and weight reduction. Customs and ports have jointly created a “direct in and out” operation model, allowing an average of 2 hours to complete loading and transfer after goods arrive at the port, with a train punctuality rate maintained at over 99%.

To accelerate the construction of the international logistics corridor, Qingdao Customs has taken the lead in carrying out normalized collaboration in all business areas of customs in the Yellow River Basin “11+1.” Based on the sea-rail intermodal model, a “land-sea linkage, direct sea-rail transport” logistics supervision model has been tailored for inland enterprises, extending cutting-edge functions such as cargo collection and loading from the port to the inland, further achieving seamless connections and integrated operations between inland ports and port terminals.

“In the past, using ‘road + sea transport’ segmented transport, a container would need to connect with more than three logistics providers from the factory to the foreign customer, with document handover taking over 3 days.” Zhao Qiang, general manager of Shandong Luqiao International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd., expressed his feelings, “Now, through the sea-rail intermodal ‘one order to the end’ service, we can achieve full delivery with one entrustment and one settlement, reducing logistics costs per container by 15%. Last year, we exported over 120 TEUs through this corridor and saved over 360,000 yuan.”

As trade between China and Central Asia becomes increasingly close, convenient international logistics is attracting more goods heading to Central Asia to use Qingdao Port as a transit corridor. In response to the characteristics of sea-rail intermodal transport “port-station linkage, multi-modal connection,” the Huangdao Customs under Qingdao Customs innovatively implemented a non-intrusive supervision model of “two images and one inspection.” When goods arrive and are unloaded at the port, they are subjected to machine inspection, and when they exit, comparisons of two images before and after the inspection are used to judge, achieving rapid customs clearance with “one declaration, one order to the end, mutual recognition between customs,” compressing the waiting time at the port of entry to about 6 days per container and saving logistics costs of 400 yuan.

By 2025, Qingdao City is expected to complete a sea-rail intermodal container volume of 2.829 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 11%, maintaining the top position in the country for 11 consecutive years in sea-rail intermodal volume. Lai Fan, director of the port supervision department of Huangdao Customs, stated that in the next steps, Customs will work with railway and port departments to increase the frequency of sea-rail intermodal trains and improve regulatory plans for special cargo transport such as cold chain and hazardous materials, providing safer, more efficient, and economical logistics support for trade between the Yellow River Basin and countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.