Trains on Northern Silk Road delivering increasing amount of trade
Europe's main Silk Road hub in Poland had been struggling, but now the number of containers arriving from Asia is on the rise. CGTN’s Johannes Pleschberger visited a Polish logistics company which operates on the Northern Silk Road – using trains rather than ships.
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00:00Europe's main silk road hub in eastern Poland has been struggling.
00:06But now, despite Western criticism over transporting goods via Russia,
00:12the Polish trade sector seems to be recovering.
00:15We are using only the way through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus.
00:20And even in that difficult situation right now, geopolitical one,
00:25we are still using that solution and the solution is quite stable.
00:32The Warsaw-based logistics company Simlok did try to bypass Russia
00:36by using the Middle Silk Road via the Caspian Sea.
00:39It turned out to be less attractive than the Northern Corridor economically and time-wise.
00:45For Polish logistics companies, the Northern Silk Road is a success story.
00:50Trains are faster and cheaper than ships using the longer sea routes.
00:55After peaking in 2021, the number of containers coming from China to Poland
01:00has dropped by more than a third due to geopolitical conflicts and the global economic slowdown.
01:06More recently, Simlok has seen a steep rise in freight volume on the Northern Corridor.
01:12We had a pandemic, we had a war started on Ukraine and as well we have Red Sea crisis.
01:21So all of that factors made uncertainty on the market.
01:25So at the moment we feel that the situation is stabilized, so the volume is recovering.
01:31Simlok is expecting the freight volume to rebound by the end of this year
01:35before a potential new record high in 2025.
01:40Poland is situated in a strategic and central location on the rail route linking Europe with China.
01:47I can say that due to this location, Poland for many years, and especially formally since 2015,
01:53sees itself as part of the great idea of Belt and Road.
01:57Despite Poland's hopes for the Northern Silk Road through Russia,
02:01the European Union decided not to co-finance the expansion of the Malasiewicza freight hub
02:06at the Belarusian border.
02:08Instead, Brussels has been seeking to prioritize other routes through Ukraine,
02:12which for now remains suspended because of the conflict.
02:16The improved economic activity in Malasiewicza, however,
02:19seems a good reason for Polish companies to keep investing.
02:23Johannes Blechberger, CGTN, Warsaw.