News / Brèves BRICS Silk Road / Route de la soie Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente First Harbin-Hamburg Train Flagged Off 14 June 2015 The first freight train linking Harbin and Hamburg prepares to depart from Harbin in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, June 13, 2015. The first freight train linking Harbin and Germany’s Hamburg departed from Harbin on Saturday. It runs a course of 9,820 kilometers and is expected to return to Harbin on July 11. (Xinhua/Wang Song) EIRNS—The first Harbin-Hamburg freight train was flagged off from Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, carrying 49 containers of domestic goods such as electronic products and auto parts worth US $3 million from northeast and north China, state-run Xinhua reported. During its 9,820-km-long travel, which it intends to cover in 15 days, the train will pass through Russia and Poland before reaching its destination Hamburg, said Tu Xiaoyue, general manager of HAO Logistics Co., Ltd, a joint venture which runs the service, PTI reported. It will deliver goods to Europe twice as quickly as maritime deliveries. Several Chinese cities, including Chongqing, Chengdu, Changsha, Hefei, Yiwu and Suzhou, have launched similar freight train services to Europe. According to Gao Zhanguo with Heilongjiang’s department for Silk Road Economic Belt projects, cited by website of China Radio today, the new rail link has obvious benefits. "The China-Mongolia-Russia corridor is the biggest one among the six land corridors along the Silk Road Economic Belt. It runs in a core area linking Russia, Mongolia, Japan and South Korea. It stretches across Eurasia from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea. The rail service can make freight transport more convenient." Ramtanu Maitra