Yiwu-Tehran railway: A freight train yesterday left Yiwu city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhaijang en route to Tehran in what what its operators Yiwu Tianmeng claim is the first regular container train linking China to the Middle East. The train will will leave China at the Alataw Pass before making its way across Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and from there on to Tehran. The 10,399 km journey is expected to take 14 days.
There are currently about 4,000 Middle East businessmen living in Yiwu and more than 180 companies set up by Middle East investors. Described by the UN as having the “largest market of petty commodity wholesales in the world”, the city’s exports to the Middle East totalled $8.8bn last year.
Source: Times of Central Asia