A river-sea combined transport cooperative project was inked between Hubei Province and Japan's Kansai on Dec.16, in Wuhan, capital city of Hubei Province.

The project aims to form a closed loop system of Japan-Wuhan-Europe (Central Asia), via China-Europe freight trains as well as river-sea combined transport services linking Wuhan with Osaka, Nagoya and Kobe. It will create a new international logistics channel across East Asia, Central Asia and Europe.

In recent years, Wuhan has ramped up efforts to create new river and sea transport channels in the inland area. The Wuhan-Japan direct shipping route was launched on November 28, 2019. So far, the route has registered 144 trips and transported more than 16,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers of goods.

In addition, a new international sea-rail combined transport service connecting Japan, Wuhan and Europe was launched, which halved the transportation time from Japan to Europe to 22 days.

Another two container ships for river-sea combined transport services will be put into use in Wuhan next year. And the ship route is expected to be extended to Japan’s Kanto, said an official at the Wuhan New Port Administration Committee.