At 10:20 pm on November 20th, with a long siren whistle, an international freight train started officially in Yichangdong Railway Freight Station and ran to Hamburg, Germany. It will arrive there after 18 days of long journey, 12,000 kilometers.

　　Departing from Yichang, this special train was loaded with such goods as high-end manufacturing, electronic information, biomedicine and agricultural products in the Three Gorges Area. It will join in WAE (Whuan Asia-Europe Logistics) at Freight Marshaling Station in Wu Jiashan, Wuhan, leave China via the railway port in Manchuri, then quickly arrive in Europe, and bring back materials like cars, energy and timbers, etc.

　　Sun Xiaohua, the deputy director of Innovation Promotion Bureau in Yichang FTA, emphasizes that the start-up of the train has served as a bridge between Yichang and countries along the Land Silk Road, which helps to build a new and open pattern featured with interaction between home and abroad in an omnidirectional way and mutual aid between East and West. It also contributes to benchmarking the high standards of new rules concerning international trade and investment and reducing business cost. All this provides a broad platform to expedite the construction of Yichang FTA, establish inland open hinterland, promote the going-out strategy for industrial and agricultural products in Yichang and conduct global cooperation in production capacity.

　　Taking advantage of the railway transport capacity from Yichang to Wuhan, Yichang-Wuhan-Hamburg International Freight Train signals a new transportation mode initiated by Yichang FTA Administrative Committee with other entities such as China Railway Shanghai Bureau Group Co., Ltd. to achieve seamless connection with China Railway Express and unblock the railway from Yichang to Europe It departs from Yichang on a weekly basis with 7 trains to be initiated by the end of this year as planned.

　　Liu Jingsong, an assistant to general manager of Angel Yeast Co, Ltd., said that it usually took about 50 to 60 days to transport goods from Yichang to Russia, the second overseas yeast factory for Angel, mostly by shipping. But now since WAE trains routinely pass through Russia, and countries in Central Asia, and Europe, the main export markets for Angel’s products, at least half of transportation time can be saved, and punctuality and efficiency can be better secured.

　　The start-up for Yichang-Wuhan-Europe trains will help to solve the problems of export difficulty, long transit cycle and high trade cost. It is an important channel to enhance international competitiveness of the products in Yichang, nurture new trade mode, promote the construction of international land port in Yichang and pave a new way for foreign trade transportation. Introducing China Railway Express to Yichang, is actually a necessity to speed up the construction of vital nodes to dock the Three Gorge Area with the “One Belt and One Belt” initiative.

　　For Six months after the listing of Yichang FTA, the Administrative Committee has actively promoted the policy of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. In order to integrate Yichang into international community in a more profound way, the Administrative Committee has carried forward the going-out strategy for the preponderant enterprises, conducted extensive cooperation regarding capacity, resources and engineer technology and gathered more elements such as logistics, flow of capital and information in Yichang via China Railway Express. All this has accelerated development of modern logistics, cultural tourism and cross-border e-commerce and pushed forward construction of Yichang into an international trade logistics center and regional central city.(Reporter Pi Yajie, correspondent Zhou Tingting)