Spain, February 18 2021 The “Yixin Europe” China-Europe train from Yiwu, China to Madrid, the capital of Spain, passes through the ancient city of Valladolid on the river Pizuega, Spain, and brings great development opportunities to it after its opening.
In an interview with Xinhua News Agency recently, the mayor of the city, Oscar Puente, said that Valladolid will make full use of the business opportunities brought by the train to promote business exchanges with China.
Valladolid is located in the autonomous region of Castile-León in western-central Spain. It is an important agricultural and pastoral production base and wine production area, and also an industrial center.
“Italian New Europe” Central European trains will greatly promote the development of the region, Puente said. We can export agricultural products to China, and we can also transport Chinese raw materials and agricultural products to the city before transferring them to surrounding cities.
In recent years, the Spanish government has vigorously promoted the construction of a railway freight project called the “Atlantic Corridor”, with a view to connecting the Atlantic ports with the inland areas of the Iberian Peninsula and even other European countries and regions through rail.
In order to increase rail freight, the Spanish government has established the largest cargo terminal in Europe in the city of Valladolid and plans to build a multimodal freight station near it.
The city is planning to develop an industrial park around freight stations, which mainly consists of logistics and agricultural product production, with a maximum development area of 700 hectares, Puente said.
The Chinese market means important opportunities, and we hope to take advantage of the advantages of trains passing through our city to promote commercial exchanges with China through the construction of multimodal transport railway stations and logistics centers.
Puente also said that the city also hopes to give full play to its cultural and tourism advantages to attract Chinese tourists and promote the development of Western-Chinese relations.
He said that although Spain is far away from China, some customs and values of the two countries have many similarities and are easy to improve communication and understanding.
The “Italian New Europe” China-Europe train launched in 2014 has been praised as the “steel camel team” between China and Europe, bringing valuable medical and living materials to Spain during the coronavirus epidemic.
Puente also made special mention of the contribution of local Chinese.
He said: “In the process of fighting against the epidemic, we have received a large number of medical supplies donated by the Chinese community. I believe that Spain and China will continue to move forward hand in many important areas.
The latest foreign trade data released by Eurostat show that the trade between EU and China grew in both directions against the trend during the epidemic in 2020, and China replaced the United States as the EU’s largest trading partner for the first time.
