Truck rally writes new chapter in silk road legend

The trucks reach Huoyan Mountain, known as the flaming mountain, in the Tuyugou Grand Valley in Xinjiang. WANG YU/CHINA DAILY

Truck drivers in China are essential to a host of other people, including farmers, online shop owners and businesses that are dependent on road haulage.

Now they are also a catalyst to the nation's aspiration to establish a Silk Road Economic Belt.

In a symbolic truck rally that crossed the nation from its eastern coastal provinces to the westernmost Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, drivers from nine teams tested and honed their skills to show they are ready to act as "transport envoys" between China and central and western Asian countries.

The teams drove 4,500 kilometers and crossed four provinces - Jiangsu, Henan, Shaanxi and Gansu - as well as the Ningxia Hui and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions.

After 15 days of travel, the vehicles competing in the first Silk Road Truck Rally arrived at their final destination, Urumqi, on Aug 28.

Along their route, several forums were staged where experts and businesspeople involved in the transport and logistics industries could exchange their ideas on the cross-border movement of goods.

The event was sponsored by the Ministry of Transport and the regional government of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and was organized by the ministry's China Academy of Transportation Sciences.

Promising initiative

When President Xi Jinping visited four central Asian countries - Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan - last September, he proposed setting up a Silk Road Economic Belt, which would encompass more than 40 Asian and European countries.

The proposed economic belt is inhabited by "close to 3 billion people and represents the biggest market in the world with unparalleled potential", the president said.

In November, the development of the Silk Road Economic Belt was included in a set of top-level government guidelines and became a national strategy.

Transport Minister Yang Chuantang has suggested that countries along this modern Silk Road should accelerate the building of cross-border railways and roads, facilitate international container transportation, and further open up their transport industries to allow room for global cooperation.

He made these proposals during the first Silk Road Economic Belt Transport Summit that was held in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on Sept 2, as a part of the fourth China-Eurasia Expo. The summit was attended by transport officials from countries such as Kazakhstan, Latvia and Pakistan.

He said the Silk Road Economic Belt will benefit peoples of nations along it and realizing this ambitious plan requires sophisticated efforts and concerted actions from the countries involved, which should build more transport hubs that can connect road, rail and air transportation.

He urged the authorities concerned to make favorable policies to boost their countries' logistic businesses and cross-border trade, adding cooperation can be deepened in terms of infrastructure construction, technological innovation, environmental protection as well as emergency response.

Vice-Premier Wang Yang also said during the expo that China is willing to provide financial support for countries along the route in the process of infrastructure construction, adding that the belt will promote interaction among the Silk Road economies through an efficient, convenient and barrier-free system for freight movement.

By the end of 2013, China had signed 15 bilateral or multilateral agreements with 12 countries along the proposed belt to facilitate the transportation of cargo by road. More than 35 million metric tons of freight were transported to or from China last year, according to Xu Yahua, a senior official with the Road Transport Department from the Transport Ministry.

Newly built transport channels linking China and Central Asia include six cross-border roads, two railways, one pipeline and eight border ports, according to Xinhua News Agency.

'Expanding connectivity'

"Despite reform and opening-up making us the second-largest economy in the world after the United States, the development gap between our eastern, coastal regions and the western, inland regions keeps expanding," the organizing committee of the rally said in a statement on its website.

"The stronger protectionism in Western markets, and the fact that the trade with Western economies is still being haunted by the financial crisis' aftershock require us to look to, and keep closer ties with our inland neighbors in Central Asia."

Though the rally has more symbolic significance rather than the practical value, it could be deemed as a preview for a joint endeavor by governments along the Silk Road Economic Belt to set up a comprehensive logistics network, experts said.

A modern logistics sector will pave the way for the sustainable growth of manufacturing and trade industries while bonding producers, traders and consumers from different countries through better connectivity, said Wang Ming, deputy director of Institute of Comprehensive Transportation under the National Development and Reform Commission.

In addition, an expert urged that China should adopt a permit for the international transport of goods in sealed load compartments by road in a bid to facilitate its trade in the international Silk Road linking the country with Eurasia regions.

Umberto de Pretto, secretary general of the International Road Transport Union, said 58 countries have become members of the Transports Internationaux Routiers agreements, in particular those in Europe.

The TIR permit excuses container trucks from member countries arriving in other member countries from needing to deposit a guarantee to cover duties and taxes at transit borders.

"However, against the backdrop of the Chinese government's call to boost the Silk Road economic belt, the logistics sector in China is unaware of the permit," he said.

During the rally, experts and officials also paid visits to a series of companies and industrial parks in Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Yinchuan and Lanzhou and they joined a seminar hosted by leading logistics firm Hezhong Logistics.

Some trainings on logistics and driving skills were held.

The author Wang Yu is chief editor, Transport Construction & Management and New Media, Li Jigang is the PR director of the Media of Transport under the China Academy of Transportation Sciences and Zhao Lei is a China Daily reporter.