Located at the intersection of the Belt and Road Initiative’s trade routes and the Yangtze River Economic Zone, the Chongqing Western Modern Logistics Industry Zone is poised to become a major international port zone in inland China.

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, stands to benefit the area through increased trade and investment, both from China and abroad.

The zone is the starting point of the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe International Railway and boasts full railway infrastructure, including a railway port for international trade.

The international railway started its service from the Tuanjiecun Railway Station in the Chongqing Western Modern Logistics Industry Zone in January 2011.

The nearly 11,180-kilometer link begins from Chongqing, crosses the border into Kazakhstan at Alataw pass, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and passes through Russia, Belarus and Poland before reaching its terminus in Duisburg, Germany.

It cuts what was a five-week shipping period to about two weeks, and costs 80 percent less than air freight.

The new link offers an attractive alternative for trading companies in Chongqing that otherwise use more time-consuming and costly maritime routes via Chinese coastal ports, including Shanghai and Guangzhou, before shipping goods through the Strait of Malacca.

After its automobile import port was approved by the State Council in July 2014, the Chongqing Western Modern Logistics Industry Zone has provided European logistics companies with the option to ship cars by rail, rather than sea. A total of 1,000 imported cars have arrived in Chongqing by rail as of Sept 1.

The zone has also attracted significant foreign investments.

Gefco, a European leader in automotive logistics, will set up a distribution center in the zone soon.

Christophe Poitrineau, Gefco’s Asia president, said the Silk Road Economic Belt will create new market growth spots for foreign companies in China, according to a previous China Daily report.

“With trade volume rising among China, Central Asia and Europe, China is rebuilding the ancient Silk Road and pursuing a new trading model that is focused on product quality and logistics efficiency — a shift away from the previous quantity-centered model with slow delivery,” Poitrineau said.

Chongqing is the largest car-manufacturing city in western China. The number of cars it produced shot up to more than 2.6 million last year.

The municipality’s GDP growth led the country at 10.9 percent in 2014 and 11 percent in 2015. The national growth rate was 6.9 percent last year.