Historic Silk Road Town Of Kashi Remains A Political And Commercial Centre (Photo : Getty Images)
Carrying dozens of cargo containers, the first cargo train from China arrived in Tehran on Monday, representing the revival of the Silk Road. The Silk Road train left China’s Zhejiang Province on Jan. 28 and traveled 10,399 kilometers, passing through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
Iranian Road and Urbanism Minister Mohsen Pour-Aqaei welcomed the Silk Road train, part of the “Belt and Road” initiative of Chinese President Xi JinPing in 2013. Aqaei noted that the train made about 700 kilometers of trip per day, significantly faster than the original Silk Road journey by water from Shanghai to Bandar Abbas in Iran which cut the travel time by 30 days.
The trip would be a regular monthly journey between Iran and China, said Aqaei, also the managing director of Iran Railway Corp. Iran is just one stopover, because in the future, the cargo train will go all the way to Europe.
The New Silk Road Economic Belt refers to the route that connects Europe and China via Western and Central Asia. There is another route, this time connecting China with Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe, called the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Even before the first journey started, China was already enjoying higher levels of trade with Maritime Silk Road nations by logging an average of 18.2 percent annual growth rate over the last 10 years, reported Xinhua News Agency. China’s trade with these countries accou
nted for 20 percent of total foreign trade, up from 14.6 percent a decade ago.
There was also growth in Chinese direct investments in these nations to $9.27 billion, up by $240 million or 44 percent boost, according to data from the State Oceanic Administration.
