How would a fashion store in Europe ensure that it gets diverse goods from everyday apparel made in Shanghai to sports shoes made in Beijing in a fast and cost-efficient way? Panalpina’s brand new high-speed rail cargo service from China to Europe is proving to be a fast, economical and reliable version of a modern Shanghai express.
The insurance company Baloise Group has chosen Panalpina’s tried and tested Trans-Siberian rail service to transport more than 3,400 editions of its new board game from Shanghai, China to its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.
In barely 14 days, Panalpina completed a 6,000 km cross-border journey to deliver 125 tons of industrial equipment from Wuxi, a city near Shanghai, China, to Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, for Swiss-based Bühler Group.
Increasingly, cargo catches a train in China and then travels more than 9,000 km to Europe. Over the last few years, rail services that link Asia with Europe have become an important alternative to air and ocean freight transportation. From 2014 to 2016, Panalpina’s rail volumes from China to Europe tripled and many major shippers now transport sizeable volumes by rail.
One of Panalpina’s oil and gas customers is currently engaged in a 15-year drilling program in Oman. The customer enlisted a big steel manufacturer, to supply 62 kilometers of gas pipeline to support the project. Fast track development meant the customer required longer than usual pipes. To ensure timely shipment of this irregular-shaped cargo, Panalpina’s expertise was called upon.
36 Million 20-foot containers were moved through the port of Shanghai in 2015. In the world’s biggest port, the very physical nature of international trade is apparent like nowhere else. Globally, 130 million containers are shipped across the seas year after year – of which Panalpina handled 1.6 million for its customers in 2014. Daryl Ridgway is Panalpina’s new global head of Ocean Freight.
