First off I hope everyone had a good holiday season and I wish the best of luck in 2008.
Now to the matter at hand. January 9, 2008 6 countries signed an agreement that will open up the smooth transportation on containers from Beijing to Hamburg. This new project will take the transit time from China to Asia which is on average around 40 days all the way down to 18 days.
At the present time to ship from China to Europe steamships will have traverse the Indian Ocean which adds about 10,000km to the voyage.
The first train departed Beijing on January 9 and is expected to make the voyage in 18 days. Once it arrives in Hamburg representatives from the 6 countries will evaluate the journey and look for ways to improve the transit.
Regular trains should start moving from Beijing to Hamburg in about a years time.
That's the latest, until the next time
Marc Bibeau
