With ocean shipping and air transportation greatly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, China-Europe freight trains have become the main bridge connecting the Eurasian continent, using "China's strength" to contribute to the global fight against the epidemic, with its unique advantages of high efficiency and sectional transportation.

Chinese and French representatives pose for a photo in front a China-Europe freight train loaded with anti-pandemic supplies in Paris, June 23, 2020. (Photo/Xinhua)

With the epidemic situation at home stabilizing, China is quickly organizing its transport resources and sending all kinds of epidemic prevention materials to other countries through the China-Europe freight trains.

The first China-EU train carrying epidemic prevention materials was dispatched from Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang province on March 21. By the end of July, a total of 4.97 million pieces - or 39,000 tons - of epidemic prevention materials had been delivered, proving greatly effective in supporting prevention and control efforts against the international epidemic.

The China-Europe freight trains have played an increasingly prominent role in stabilizing the central European and global industrial supply chains. The automobile industry is a typical example: since July, five "special trains for Audi" have arrived in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin province, from Bremen, Germany.

Correspondingly, Chinese auto parts such as glass, tires, wheels and seats can be shipped to Germany in just two weeks through the China-Europe freight trains, supplying Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other auto companies.

"Some of the goods that were originally supposed to be transported by sea are now being transferred to the railway," said Dong Wanxu, general manager of Germany's DBO Bahnoperator GmbH Company, adding that in April this year, the company was responsible for the operation of 80 China-European trains, more than double that of the same period last year. The central European train station in Duisburg, Germany, even became so congested that the company had to send some of the trains to surrounding city stations.

In the first seven months of 2020, freight services between Chinese cities and destinations along the Eurasia trade routes came to 6,354 trips, an increase of 41 percent from a year earlier.