(Yicai) Aug. 14 -- An increasing number of Chinese exporters are embracing Transports Internationaux Routiers, which is a global road transport system that allows trucks to move goods across member countries without repeated border checks, as a faster and more flexible logistics option amid growing uncertainties in global trade.

The TIR service is almost as fast as air transport and costs about the same as rail freight, said Xu Jianyong, business manager in charge of TIR operations at Wenzhou Juxin Supply Chain Management’s international multi-modal transport port. For e-commerce clients, delivery speed is more important than the freight rate.

Speed is the main reason companies are choosing TIR. Zhejiang Xuyang Luggage used to mainly rely on sea freight or the China-Europe freight train, said Executive-in-Charge Xia Chenghe. But when clients recently requested faster delivery, the Rui’an-based company tried TIR for the first time and discovered that for shipments to Moscow, for example, TIR is five times faster than sea freight, which usually takes 55 days, and three times faster than rail cargo, which normally takes 30 days.

Chen Xinping, a hat exporter in Yiwu, told Yicai that all his company’s shipments to Central Asia now go by TIR. After visiting the region in June, Chen started to develop more locally tailored products and he expects exports to Central Asia to double this year.

Sales to Central Asia should swell 15 percent this year compared with last year, said Ding Yandong, a door and window accessories supplier based in southeastern Zhejiang province. At the same time, demand from emerging markets such as South America is also rising sharply, he added.

TIR is a global road transport model established under the United Nations’ Convention on the International Transport of Goods Under Cover of TIR Carnets, which allows trucks to move goods across 78 member countries without going through time-consuming border checks at each country they are transiting through. By leveraging the TIR’s unified international guarantee system, goods can be transported using the ‘one declaration, one truck direct to destination’ model. In other words, there are no vehicle changes, no cargo transfers and no inspections en route.

Rapid Adoption

China’s General Administration of Customs began fully implementing the TIR Convention in 2019, but the system only started operating on a commercial basis in 2023, after which it took off rapidly.

Manzhouli Land Port, which is situated on the border with Russia and was one of the first pilot customs points for TIR, now runs 18 TIR routes, including between Zhengzhou and Moscow as well as between Qingdao and Yekaterinburg.

In the first half, 694 TIR trucks were cleared through Manzhouli, nearly four-and-a-half times the number a year earlier. They carried CNY890 million (USD124.1 million) worth of goods, up almost 10-fold year on year.

From January to July, Rui’an in Zhejiang province, which was the first city in the south of the country to launch TIR, dispatched 43 TIR shipments worth CNY26 million (USD3.6 million). The TIR model has since been rolled out in other cities such as Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Yiwu.

Editor: Kim Taylor