Beijing time September 25 at 17:29 ¡°Yiu-Madrid¡± ZhejiangCentral European GroupAfter the entire train was changed at Brest Port in Belarus, the whistle sounded again and sailed for the Polish border town of Malaszewicz (hereinafter referred to as "Mara").

This is the first "New Europe" route to Europe to be resumed after the re-opening of the border port of Potsdam (Poland, Belarus). About 12 hours ago, the border barrier was just removed by Polish border guards. Before, due to a massive joint military exercise between Russia and Belarus, Poland closed all roads and railway ports between Potsdam and Belarus on the morning of September 12 local time.

The shipping company revealed to the Daily Economic News (hereinafter referred to as "every reporter") that during the 13 days of the closure of the border port, about 350 routes were blocked on both sides of the port. Conservative estimates estimate that the processing capacity of the port of Mala, the Central European routes through Mala to Europe will take at least three to four weeks to restore normal operation.

At the moment, the cloud is dispersed, everything is being restarted in an orderly manner. Foreign traders expect the China-European line to return to the right track as soon as possible, and also look forward to choosing more transport routes and modes of transportation to cross the waves that occasionally arise.

Poland Closes Central European Line

Emergency: Babel port closed for 13 days 300 routes have been issued

At 18 a.m. on September 25th, Beijing time, after half an hour, in Shenzhen, about 8,000 kilometers away from Poland, the head of China-Europe Group International Logistics (Guangzhou) Limited, Bayley re-started the advertisement in the circle of friends:

"The Mara Port in Poland is running today. New and old customers are welcome to book cabins and make inquiries. Give me a chance and you are very satisfied." In the video below the copy, a train carrying containers of various colors slowly passes by the camera. This border town of Mara is moving again.

During the whole of September, Bayer only issued two dynamics on the Białystok port and one on the evening of September 23 Beijing time. On that day, Poland officially announced that it would open the port on September 25,¡± Bayer wrote in a friend circle.

For most foreign traders, the evening of September 23 is a celebration-worthy night. Liu Fong, head of Shanghai Zhejiang Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd., is delighted, "Our company only does the "Belt and Road" market in China and follows the policy to expand the cross-border e-commerce distribution business in Europe, so for us (the re-opening of ports) is definitely a good news."

In the circle of freight transportation between China and Europe, Liu Feng Company's railway order volume ranks in the upper-middle level in the industry. Almost every day, goods are loaded on the China-Europe train to Europe via Liu Feng's company. Mara, Poland, is the only place for these trains.

The variation occurred on September 12.

When Liu Feng heard the news of Poland's closure of the port, he was on a trip to Yue. The closure of the port directly led to the fact that more than 40 boxes of goods in his hands were forced to stay (hearing this news) was surprising, of course. The unilateral closure of the port, I think it was a very impulsive practice, with a great impact on bilateral trade.

This was an unexpected "black swan" event. Poland, known as the "heart of Europe", is an important hub connecting Asian and Western European countries, and its radiation population can reach 50% of the total population of Europe. Since 2011, the first Central European group arrived in Germany via Poland from Chongqing to Chongqing, and for 14 years, there has almost never been such a situation on the Bohemian port.

According to statistics, roughly 90% of Central European flights transit or arrive in Poland every year, and almost all trains from China have to pass through Malacca to the EU. In these years of rapid development of Central European flights, Malacca has become Europe's largest Central European train transfer hub.

According to the industry media "China Logistics and Procurement" magazine, the closure of the port is equivalent to the direct cut off of the "steel hammer" core channel. As of September 17, about 300 rows of China-European routes have been launched on the border of Belarus, carrying electronics, automotive parts, textile raw materials and other goods stagnate, aggravating the risk of "stock alert" of cross-border sellers, European importers and retailers, some enterprises face supply chain rupture pressure.

Back to the microscopic perspective, it is not to be overlooked that the hundreds of blocks in Central Europe still involve the lives of thousands of ordinary people in the world's villages.

Map of Central Europe.

Response: Air traffic together, cargo shipping breakdown

Among Liu Fong's customers, there are many businessmen who do cross-border e-commerce, and China and Europe are temporarily unable to cross the border, leaving some businessmen's inventories to rush.

¡°From a customer¡¯s point of view, the impact is big. For example, we have a lot of Amazon customers with limited inventory. There have been some procurement and transportation plans in China before, but all the goods are delayed on the way due to this incident. If customers create a new plan, it¡¯s actually difficult to complete the quantity they want. It¡¯s only for urgent products, such as missing goods, small batches of air transportation to the destination,¡± Liu Fong said.

On the afternoon of the closure of Bobai Port, Liu Feng sent a circle of friends, with only two words in the copy-"open the way". In the context of the temporary interruption of China-Europe freight trains, Liu Feng provided customers with alternative solutions such as sea freight, air freight and Qatar Airways.

¡°We do logistics services around cross-border e-commerce, China and Europe are just one of the options, air, land, and sea transportation we are all involved. In the advice to customers, we also predict the duration of this impact, and will be arranged for customers. For example, especially keen to replace with air or land transportation; if you want more stability, we would recommend to go sea.¡±

Despite the prepared response, the time for the closure of the Polish port has exceeded Liu Fong's expectations.

After the closure of the ports for a week, the Polish government has still failed to give a clear response. Liu Fong¡¯s company is preparing another plan: In addition to the continued execution of recent mid-European airline orders, it will suspend receiving new Central European airline logistics operations. At the same time, the truck fleet on the way is trying to transform Latvia into Europe.

¡°The closure of the Port of Beirut also affects freight carriers, but the impact will not be fatal. The flexibility of the Car is high, it will not be motionless, and you can choose to move around. The process of importation is also visualized, and you can observe how many cars are in line every day, and when they can probably enter,¡± Liu Fong said.

Changing the mode of transportation is also a common solution in the industry.

According to a September 17 report in China Logistics and Procurement magazine, there is no other viable option for the Central European line that is already on the way, except for waiting for the re-opening of the ports in Poland; for goods that have not yet been launched, logistics operators suggested that freight owners consider switching transport modes, such as sea, air or other routes.

However, changing the mode of transportation also means changes in time and economic costs.

In Shenzhen, an international logistics company, Zhou Yuan paid a bill to each reporter. The especially urgent guests will choose to switch to air transport, but the proportion is not large. In terms of cost, the cost of air transportation is approximately 3 times more expensive than in Central Europe. while the sea price will be about 30% cheaper than in Central Europe.

When the dimension of statistical data is widened, the cost difference between several modes of transportation is more obvious. According to a research report released by Bank of China Futures, the transportation time of China-Europe freight trains is 1/2 that of sea transportation and three times that of air transportation. The average container cost is US $4,000 to US $8,000, which is 3 to 5 times more expensive than the cost of sea freight and 1/10 of the cost of air freight.

Recovery: Routes via Poland are still favored, Arctic Express attracts attention

In addition to changing the mode of transportation, the goods that have not yet been dispatched can also try to replace the railway line. A market department official in the western region involved in the operation of China-European ferries told reporters that the goods could not (from the western region) enter Europe through the Central-European ferries, the company where they are located has informed customers about the change of information such as "going the railway sea transportation or the Southern line channel".

With the gradual maturity of the south channel of China-Europe trains, the network pattern of overseas channels of China-Europe trains is becoming increasingly perfect. At present, China-Europe trains have built three channels in the west, middle and east in China; Overseas, there is a situation in which the north, middle and south lines are parallel. Up to now, 128 cities in my country have opened China-Europe trains, reaching 229 cities in 26 European countries and over 100 cities in 11 Asian countries.

However, judging from the existing scheme, the route via Poland (northern line and middle line) is still an excellent solution with both economy and convenience. Liu Feng analyzed every reporter: "In fact, we have been trying to open up more waterways. There is an important principle for logistics. The fewer nodes in the whole line, the lower the probability of problems. Compared with other lines, there are many uncontrollable factors in the southern line, and we still prefer the continuous operation of the northern line."

According to Liu Feng observed, in the past two years, customers are also increasingly accustomed to leaving "advance quantities". a very obvious manifestation is that this year's Yuu Christmas season has come earlier than in previous years - the peak of last year's shipment in June to August, but this year's April has already begun.

In the opinion of the majority of foreign traders interviewed, the impact of the event is large, but the scope is not wide. From a statistical point of view, the number of flights affected is not high in the total number of China-European flights. In terms of the amount, in 2024, China-European flights accounted for only 1.65% of China's total exports, accounting for about 8% of China's trade volume.

In late September, every reporter randomly interviewed dozens of merchants operating different categories in Yiwu International Trade City. The vast majority of merchants believe that this incident has no impact on their business. As the "Yiwu of the world", the local highly developed cross-border trade industrial system itself has certain self-adaptive ability, which is enough to resolve the impact of some uncertainties.

Sustainable arrangement of containers in Central Europe (data map) Source: Visual China

The clouds dispersed, and foreign trade people still had confidence in the line through Poland.

According to Liu Feng estimates, blocking in the Central European line in Mara takes about three to four weeks to digest. Therefore, at the moment he suggests that customers adopt other modes of transportation, wait for the northern line to return to normal and then re-select the line, everyone hopes to return to normal. Because China and Europe are listed in the cross-border e-commerce circuit play a crucial role: one is timely, save a lot of time than sea transportation; the second is the e-commerce has the requirement of funding cycle, to use the funds to the most core point.

Zhou Yang also has a similar feeling: "After (China-Europe train) returns to normal, customers still trust this line, and it is understandable to close it for a period of time. Looking at the news, our country is also communicating with Poland, and Europe and Poland also need the normalization of China-Europe trains."

In addition to the above lines, foreign trade people also expect the new route to be stable.

On September 22, Hajj Shipping "Istanbul Bridge" routes departed from Ningbo Jiaozhou Port Northon port area, opening a route across the northeastern Arctic route, ending at the port of Flixstown in the United Kingdom.

According to the report, the route takes only 18 days to reach the UK from Ningbo Port, far less than the previous 40 days required for maritime transportation through the Suez Canal. Even starting from Zhejiang City, it takes more than 20 days to reach Europe via the Central European Line.

In the days after seeing the news, Gu Xing, who works in a logistics company in Shanghai, has been studying how to catch the "clipper" on the Arctic route. Gu Xing serves German customers all the year round, and now a batch of goods is trapped at Bobai Port. In his view, as long as the 18-day Arctic route has both efficiency and cost advantages, the only regret is that he has not yet known whether there is a planned return route for the Arctic route.

In addition, Gu Xing is also looking forward to the completion of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway. It is reported that after the railway was opened to traffic, the freight time from Kashgar, Xinjiang to Andijan, Uzbekistan was shortened from 7 to 10 days by road transportation to 2 to 3 days, a drop of more than 60%; The cost of bulk cargo transportation is 30% lower than that of highway, and the rail-public combined transport mode will further optimize the comprehensive logistics cost.

(In addition to Liu Feng, Bailey, Zhou Yang and Gu Xing are all pseudonyms; Every reporter Yu Rui also contributed to this article)

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