New China-Europe Railway Express route connects northeastern city with Moscow

A new route of the China-Europe Railway Express, connecting Tongjiang City in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province with Moscow, Russia, was inaugurated on Tuesday.

This marked the departure of 110 standard containers from the northeastern city's intermodal center of the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area.

The cargo, consisting of home appliances such as refrigerators, TVs, and washing machines manufactured in Qingdao and valued at around 12 million yuan (about 1.66 million U.S. dollars), embarked on a journey from Tongjiang port in Heilongjiang to Moscow, the Russian capital after the customs clearance in Qingdao City, east China's Shandong Province. Around 20 days later, this train will arrive in Moscow.

"The China-Europe Railway Express operates effectively and provides stable logistics options for enterprises engaging in exports and imports. The variety of commodities exported from the China-SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area has increased, with high-value-added products like home appliances and vehicles becoming the main exports," stated Zhang Qinghai, director of the Jiaozhou Customs in Qingdao.

To date, the demonstration area's international route network has expanded to include 22 lines reaching 54 cities across 23 SCO and Belt and Road countries. More than 3,400 trains have set off from the demonstration area, carrying 2.633 million tons of goods in 281,000 TEU containers for import and export.

New China-Europe Railway Express route connects northeastern city with Moscow

The decline in the prices of commercial residential homes in China's 70 large and medium-sized cities stabilized on a month-on-month basis in September, according to official data released on Friday.

In the country's first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, new home prices edged down by 0.5 percent, compared with a 0.3-percent drop in the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Second- and third-tier cities both registered declines of 0.7 percent month on month, with the former matching the decline from the previous month, while the latter improved from a 0.8-percent drop in August.

In September, prices of resale homes in first-tier cities fell by 1.2 percent month on month, with the decline widening by 0.3 percentage point compared to the previous month, the NBS said.

In the second- and the third-tier cities, resale home prices both fell by 0.9 percent month on month. In second-tier cities, the decline narrowed by 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous month, while in third-tier cities, the decline remained unchanged from the prior month.

China's home price decline stabilizes month on month in September: official data