Customs officers check freight on the Suzhou-Manzhouli-Europe train at Manzhouli entry-exit port on March 13. [Inner Mongolia Daily]

The Inner Mongolian port city of Manzhouli has introduced policies to simplify inspection and quarantine procedures for China-Europe freight trains.

In the first two months of 2017, Manzhouli’s inland port handled 178 China-Europe freight trains, an increase of 14 percent year-on-year.

The 11,800-kilometer Suzhou-Manzhouli-Europe railway line, which opened in September 2013, has significantly boosted China’s trade with Eurasia.

The train line starts in East China’s economic powerhouse, Suzhou in Jiangsu province, runs to the Manzhouli port in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region and finishes in Warsaw, Poland. The whole trip usually takes about 13 days.

The line was built to benefit China’s trade with Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. Its construction was part of the country’s strategy to boost technological and trade cooperation with Northeast Asian, Northern and Eastern European countries.

With a comparably short round-trip, the average price for each container is almost 20 percent cheaper than that of other train lines, and therefore these trains are recognized as the quickest and cheapest means of Sino-Europe container transport.

The importance of China-Europe freight trains has been highlighted under China’s Belt and Road Initiative alongside the building of the China-Russia-Mongolia Corridor.

New lines connecting Manzhouli with Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, and Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, opened in recent weeks. Yiwu in Zhejiang province, Chengdu in Sichuan province and Wuhan in Hubei province also joined the China-to-Europe club.

Thanks to its location, Manzhouli is the key hub for China’s inland railway network and penetrates into West Siberia in Russia, which in turn links to Europe.

The city has widespread connections with West Siberia, as it has stops in Chita, Novosibirsk, New Siberia, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Ryazan, Moscow, Minsk, Brest, Warsaw, Berlin and Rotterdam. The line passes through 10 major cities in Russia as well as 20 countries and regions in Europe.

It stretches to the Commonwealth of Independent States, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Britain.

Manzhouli is located on the Hulunbuir Grasslands and neighbors Hulun Nur Lake, with the border river with Russia offering fabulous scenic views.

Tourists can see the oldest human skull found in North China and the country’s most complete fossil of a mammoth. Other attractions include China’s largest Xianbei ancient tomb and Matryoshka Square, which boasts impressive architecture.

It offers a mix of Western and Eastern cultures, where visitors can get a taste of the revolutionary changes that have occurred in the region.