Loaded with wine, olive oil, fleur de sel, cork products or traditional Ach Brito soaps, the containers leave from Tilburg in the Netherlands and travel almost 11,000 kilometers, crossing Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, until they reach Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

“It's very advantageous: it has allowed Chengdu's position in the interior of China to be converted into a hub and has reduced transportation time,” she explained to the Lusa news agency, co-founder of the Pavilhão de Portugal, a space for exhibiting and wholesaling Portuguese products, located at the Chengdu International Railway Port.

“Shipping takes at least four months. The rail link reduces the time to just 13 days,” explained the co-founder. The cost is also only a fifth of air freight.

(Source: Notícia ao Minuto, on January 11)