Shanghai customs authorities have acted to clear international logistics backlogs by turning to China-Europe freight train services, after a number of international flights were suspended from Shanghai as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, ThePaper.cn reported.

Customs staff check plate number, container number and the number of parcels loaded on a vehicle leaving Shanghai for Yiwu. Photo courtesy of Shanghai customs

Due to restricted international air freight capacity, up to 800 tonnes of parcels were stuck at Shanghai airports per day during the peak of the epidemic.

On April 3, Shanghai customs started to collaborate with its counterpart in Yiwu in east China’s Zhejiang province by transferring a batch of parcels to China-Europe freight trains. The parcels were then transported by these trains to Europe and distributed to their destinations.

On April 22, a total of 3,173 parcels weighing 48.5 tonnes were transported from Shanghai to a railway station in Yiwu, where they were loaded on to a Yixin'ou train (Yiwu-Xinjiang-Europe) and headed for Europe via the freight train service.

By April 22, some 99 containers had gone through customs supervision and 44,871 parcels from Shanghai were loaded onto China-Europe freight trains in Yiwu. Shanghai expects to clear half of the backlogged parcels by the end of May.