China, Russia, South Korea land-sea transport line starts operation
2011-07-14
A YONGHE vessel carrying 10 containers has arrived in the South Korea's Busan port from China's Hunchun port in Jilin Province, marking the opening of a land-sea transport route from China's Hunchun to Busan through a Russian port, reports Xinhua.
The Yonghe container vessel set sail again from the Russia's Zalubinau port after it finished the first part of the voyage from Hunchun city in China.
Chu Tiecheng, deputy director of the Municipal Board of Navigational Affairs of Hunchun, said the full transport line, with a length of about 450 nautical miles, takes more than 40 hours for the whole journey. After the opening of the line, the freighter will make the trip back and forth once a week.
The goods were first transported to Russia's Zalubinau port 63 kilometres from Huichun by road and then shipped in containers to Busan.
The line is expected to cut travel time and reduce the transportation costs from China to South Korea, Japan and the EU countries, as Busan is an international shipping port.
The new service will make Hunchun, a border city in northeast China's Jilin province a transport centre in north east Asia, said Zhu Xianping, a professor with China's Jilin University.
