(Yicai) Jan. 21 -- More trains along the China-Europe Railway Express were handled by Xi’an and Zhengzhou than Chengdu and Chongqing last year, reflecting China’s foreign trade diversification and increased trade with Central Asia.

Xi’an and Zhengzhou ranked first and second by the number of China-Europe freight trains operated in 2025, with 4,912 and 3,417, respectively, according to data from the China-Europe Railway Express website. Chengdu and Chongqing, which had long led the rankings in the past years, fell to third and fourth spots.

One of the main reasons Xi’an and Zhengzhou surpassed Chengdu and Chongqing is their large volume of operations along the Central Asian routes, Tang Tingting, assistant general manager at Sichuan province-based New Silk Road Multimodal Transport, told Yicai.

A total of 20,022 freight trains along the European route were operated along the China-Europe Railway Express last year, up 3.2 percent from 2024, according to data from the China-Europe Railway Express website. Meanwhile, 14,254 trains were operated along the Central Asian route, up nearly 20 percent in the period.

These data show that trains headed to and coming from Central Asia were the main source of incremental growth last year, reflecting the rapid growth in foreign trade between China and Central Asian countries.

The foreign trade volume between China and Central Asia doubled in just four years from USD49.6 billion in 2021, Sun Weidong, secretary-general of the China-Central Asia Mechanism, told the media yesterday. Its share in China’s total foreign trade rose to about 1.5 percent from 0.8 percent in the period.

Xi’an and Zhengzhou operated 998 and 1,039 trains along the Central Asian route last year, up 32 percent and 132 percent, respectively, from the previous year. In comparison, Chengdu and Chongqing operated only 129 and 261 trains, up 68 percent and 55 percent, respectively, in the period.

Chengdu and Chongqing remained focused on European destinations last year, despite a decline in related operations. In fact, the number of trains along the European route they operated in 2025 fell 7.9 percent to 2,105 and 6.1 percent to 1,933, respectively, from 2024.

Editor: Futura Costaglione