At Zengcheng West Station, located in the eastern center of Guangzhou, containers are being loaded and unloaded in a staggered manner, trucks enter and exit orderly, and sirens sound as one China-Europe train slowly pulls out of the platform after another.
"Today, four international trains depart from here to Central Asia and Europe," said Li Siqiang, the head of the Train Operations Department of GCI International Train Operation Management Co., Ltd. Because of its high operational stability and timeliness, the China-Europe Railway Express at Zengcheng West Station is increasingly favored by foreign trade enterprises. It has become an important channel connecting the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area with Belt and Road partner countries, showing a continued positive growth trend.
According to statistics, in the first half of this year, Zengcheng Customs, under Huangpu Customs, supervised and released 200 international trains at Zengcheng West Station, involving 21,706 standard containers with a cargo value of RMB 5.9 billion. These figures represent year-on-year increases of 9%, 21%, and 33% respectively. The number of departures accounted for 48% of Guangzhou’s total and 40% of Guangdong Province’s total.
To continuously expand the advantages of the Guangzhou Eastern Highway-Railway Multimodal Transport Hub, Zengcheng Customs has tailored train supervision plans based on the attributes of the train cargo and the customs clearance needs along the delivery routes. They provide "24/7" inspection and release services, aligning with the cargo loading and unloading process. This includes coordinating document review, inspection, and release stages, which has reduced the average customs clearance time for train cargo from declaration to release to just 15 min.
At the same time, driven by the "technology + reform" approach of smart customs, Zengcheng Customs has utilized intelligent devices such as smart checkpoints, remote electronic eyes, and nuclear radiation detection gates to establish an embedded, all-chain "non-invasive supervision" system. They promote convenient features such as "cloud review" for international trade single-window declarations and "cloud issuance" for certificates, achieving effective management while ensuring fast clearance.
It is reported that since its operation three years ago, Zengcheng West Station has launched six outbound routes and seven return routes to Central Europe, Central Asia, China-Laos, and China-Vietnam, reaching 15 countries and 30 cities. It has achieved breakthroughs in daily train operations, two-way trade, and transit multimodal transport. Recently, the first intermodal transit shipment of "China-Vietnam Railway Express + China-Europe Railway Express" in Guangdong Province successfully completed its transfer and dispatch at Zengcheng West Station. This marks the official opening of the "Vietnam-China-Europe" railway intermodal transit corridor in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
The eastern center of Guangzhou is focusing on Zengcheng West Station to establish an international freight train assembly center in the Greater Bay Area. It is vigorously developing modern logistics and comprehensive foreign trade services, aiming to create an open and efficient three-dimensional transportation gateway. Zengcheng Customs, under Huangpu Customs, will continue to leverage its local customs functions, deepen the construction of smart customs, and promote multimodal transport and multi-route connections. It aims to assist in establishing an efficient and convenient customs clearance system for freight trains, providing stable channel support for economic and trade cooperation with Belt and Road partner countries. (Text by Pu Xuan)
Disclaimer：The above content is translated from Chinese version of GACC. The GACC version shall prevail.