China's Erenhot port handles 1,000 China-Europe freight trains within year

Photo taken on Jan. 8, 2021 shows freight trains at Erenhot Port in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (Photo by Guo Pengjie/Xinhua)

HOHHOT, April 22 (Xinhua) -- The 1,000th China-Europe freight train passed through the border port of Erenhot in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Sunday.

"It used to take at least seven or eight hours to go through procedures for inbound cargo trains. After the digital port system was put into use, customs clearance has been shortened to about two hours," said Wang Hongwen with the port.

The proportion of high value-added and high-tech goods such as automobiles, computers and robots has increased to more than 40 percent. Since the beginning of this year, the export of domestic automobiles has climbed to 12 percent of the total export goods, registering a record high in history of the same period, according to port's figures.

Erenhot Port is an important land port for the export of Chinese goods to Mongolia, Russia and Europe. Since the beginning of this year, a total of 1,001 China-Europe freight trains have passed through the Erenhot railway port, carrying 113,000 TEU of cargo, up 7.8 percent and 9.2 percent respectively, reaching record highs in the same period.