‘Made in China’ successes give boost to export ambitions
China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ is coming together as planned, with further domestic manufacturing achievements and the re-establishment of ancient trade routes
Providing a dramatic demonstration of the mainland’s growing importance as a global manufacturing and export hub, a cargo train carrying 123 high-end S90 Volvo cars chugged out of Daqing in Heilongjiangprovince last month – the first time that China had exported cars which had been manufactured entirely in China to western Europe by train.
With Zeebrugge Port in Belgium as the final destination, the journey of 9,832km spanned Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany, on a route which roughly follows the ancient Silk Road, and which is part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to expand global trade.
“The train route ties Volvo’s global manufacturing and logistics strategy to the multibillion euro trade flows between China and Europe and the ‘One Belt, One Road Initiative’ [the former name of the trade initiative] that seeks to resurrect the age old Silk Road trade route for a new era of global trade,” Volvo says in a statement.
The Swedish marque shifted some of its S90 production to Daqing last November, and plans to build all its S90s there soon.
Chinese-owned Volvo says that existing and future 60-series medium-sized Scalable Product Architecture (SPA)-based cars will be built at its plant in Chengdu, Szechuan province, in western China, while its planned 40-series smaller cars will be made at a plant that is under construction in Luqiao, 350km south of Shanghai.
China’s key manufacturing indicator, the Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell for the first time in 11 months in May, dropping to 49.6, with a reading below 50.0 suggesting a contraction in the sector.
