By Wang Wei & Li Hanqing, Institute of Market Economy, DRC

Research Report, No.84, 2019 (Total 5584) 2019-6-3

Abstract: Through several years of rapid development, China-Europe Railway Express has added more and more cities to its stations along the railway line, exerting a strong influence in the world through various major hub stations. This railway express has evolved from the initial low-level development to the high-level improvement of quality and efficiency. Despite the positive outcomes made by China Europe Railway Express, some problems have loomed up in its swift development including the scattered layout of its stations, the overlapped routes, the inadequate goods supply for certain urban railways, the high empty-loading ratio for return trips, the bottlenecks faced by infrastructure building and the unreasonable supportive policies. The relevant government departments need to further leverage the decisive role played by the market in resource allocation, improve related supportive policies in a timely manner, change the running mode from direct “point-to-point” trips to “hub-to-hub” trips, explore the tax rebate policies of shipment ports, and optimize the pricing mechanism with proper subsidy approaches in a bid to promote the high-quality development of China-Europe Railway Express and pave the way for the smooth advance of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Key words: China-Europe Railway Express, layout of hub stations, pricing mechanism