A China-Europe freight train bound for Duisburg of Germany pulls out of the Wuhan terminal of China Railway Intermodal in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 28, 2020.Photo:Xinhua

A chartered China-Europe Railway Express train carrying 86 containers of coronavirus control materials departed from Yiwu in East China's Zhejiang Province on Friday for Madrid in Spain, in a bid to support the COVID-19 fight. It is the first chartered train to transport virus control materials from China to Spain.

The train will leave Chinese borders through the Alashankou port in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and is expected to arrive in Madrid in 20 days, thepaper.cn reported.

China-Europe freight trains are more economical and efficient compared to air or sea transport, Liu Xilin, general manager of the Shanghai branch of China Railway Container Transport Co. Ltd, said in a report by thepaper.cn. Liu said it is estimated that transportation by sea would take 40 days.

The China-Europe Railway Express also launched its first road-rail combined cargo transport line between China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan on Friday. The first train departed from Lanzhou in Northwest China's Gansu Province. It will pass through the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan and finally arrive in the city of Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

The China-Europe Railway Express set new cargo transport records in May and has guaranteed both the global supply chain in the fight against COVID-19 and the development of China's foreign trade. It completed a record 1,033 journeys in May, up 43 percent year-on-year. 93,000 containers were transported, an increase of 48 percent year-on-year. 

By May, it had transported about 12,524 tons of virus control materials including masks, first aid kits, protective clothing, forehead thermometers and goggles to European countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, which were later distributed to further countries.