- Turkiye’s exports using railways rose by nearly 13 per cent between January and July this year to 1.2 million tonnes of cargo.
- The construction of the future duisport’s bimodal terminal in Kartepe, 150 kilometres southeast of Istanbul, Türkiye, is entering its final stages. The first trains and trucks should start rolling in at the beginning of 2025.
- Rail freight volumes along the Azerbaijani section of the INSTC have grown by 25 per cent in the first half year of 2024, when compared to the same period of the previous year. Volumes amounted to approximately 435,000 tonnes of goods.
- Danish shipping giant DSV and a consortium led by private equity fund CVC Capital Partners submitted their final offers to purchase DB Schenker, the logistics arm of the German railway group Deutsche Bahn. What has been called as the logistics sale of the 21st century should thus be finalised in the coming weeks.
- The European Commission is set to ban Deutsche Bahn’s (DB) subsidies for its freight subsidiary DB Cargo. The freight operator’s losses are sky-high, and the EU considers the financial support for the loss-making state-owned operator to be market distortion.
- Container exports from Japan to the U.S. reached 56,174 TEUs in July, marking a 14.3% increase compared to the same period last year.
- A pilot train on the Korea-China-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan route was launched at the Kazakh-Chinese logistics terminal in the port of Lianyungang. The train, carrying auto parts, will travel 7 thousand kilometers, opening up new avenues of economic cooperation between the countries.
- China and its southern neighbour Vietnam are pulling together to build three standard gauge, high-speed rail links. The infrastructure project will help to streamline logistics in the area and connect China up to more countries in Southeast Asia.
- Rail freight in Czechia has not had a great early summer numbers-wise. July’s volumes were lower than any other July since data recording started in 2016. The year-on-year decline amounted to two per cent.
- Rail freight traffic at the largest port in Spain, Algeciras, has significantly decreased throughout 2024 so far. The main reason behind the drop is that shippers are moving their goods onto the road as the rail infrastructure will be largely unavailable due to upgrades to develop the Zaragoza-Algeciras rolling highway.
