In a landmark step for regional trade and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou, located in Hebei Province, launched its first regularly scheduled freight train service bound for Central Asia on April 22, 2026.
The inaugural service departed from the Xiahuayuan District rail transportation hub carrying 49 forty-foot containers filled with a mixed cargo of auto components, industrial materials, and finished consumer goods. Per details shared by Wang Dong, marketing manager of the Beijing Railway Logistics Center, the train will travel through the Alataw Pass border crossing in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, with an estimated transit time of 13 days to reach its final destination: Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest commercial hub.
This new route marks a major expansion of China’s cross-border freight network connecting northern Chinese industrial regions to Central Asian markets. For Zhangjiakou, a city previously best known for co-hosting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the new freight service opens a direct, efficient trade corridor that integrates the city’s local manufacturing and logistics sectors into the expanding BRI economic cooperation framework. It is expected to cut trade costs for local enterprises looking to access Central Asian markets while strengthening two-way trade and economic ties between northern China and Central Asian economies.