On August 24, ten 40-foot cold-chain containers fully loaded with high-quality bananas from Laos, an ASEAN member state, arrived at the Smart Cold Chain Digital Logistics Center of Huaihua International Land Port, marking a further improvement in the land port’s capabilities in consolidating and distributing ASEAN fruits. The bananas transported via the China-Laos Railway will be partially distributed to Shanghai, Sichuan, Hubei, and Hunan after their arrival in Huaihua, while the remainder will be stored at Huaihua International Land Port to meet domestic demand for high-quality tropical fruits on an ongoing basis.
Since early August, Huaihua International Land Port has imported a total of 40 40-foot cold-chain containers (80 TEUs) of bananas from Laos in just over 20 days, with a total weight of about 800 metric tons and a total value of about RMB10 million. Nowadays, at least five cold-chain containers are transported from Vientiane, Laos to Huaihua via the China-Laos Railway, either directly or indirectly every three to five days. This demonstrates the increasingly enhanced capabilities of Huaihua International Land Port in cross-border railway cold chain logistics.
According to the person in charge of railway cold chain logistics at Huaihua International Land Port, it is the first time that the land port has achieved cold chain transportation of such a large volume of fruits during non-holiday periods. This not only demonstrates the land port’s significant progress in developing international cold chain logistics channels, but also indicates that customers are gradually shifting from traditional road transport to railway cold chain logistics that is more efficient and stable. Laotian exporters have planned to transport 50 cold-chain containers in September, fully demonstrating their recognition of and confidence in the service capabilities of Huaihua International Land Port and the subsequent development of the front-end warehouse for Laos bananas at Huaihua International Land Port.
In recent years, Huaihua International Land Port has continued to develop its characteristic cold chain logistics. At present, the land port operates the Laos banana train service on a regular basis and maintains stable and frequent train trips even during non-holiday periods. The land port offers a reliable channel for agricultural product trade between China and ASEAN. Meanwhile, as the cooperation model of Kunming-Huaihua scheduled trains becomes more robust, Huaihua International Land Port has coordinated the Laos banana train service and the Kunming vegetable train service, launched Wangjiaying (Kunming)-Huaihua Internation Land Port scheduled trains, and significantly enhanced transportation efficiency. With the cold chain scheduled trains, the transport time has been reduced from three days to one day, greatly enhancing the competitiveness of regional cold chain services.
(Translated by Professor Yu Jie)