The Alashankou Comprehensive Bonded Zone in Alashankou on November 5 (XINHUA)
When He Haiyan, a 52-year-old businesswoman in Alashankou, also known as the Alataw Pass, first arrived here in 1998 from Yulin in Shaanxi Province in northwest China to sell fruit at a local night market, she was horrified by the vast, desolate Gobi Desert.
Alashankou, in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, had little infrastructure at that time, she recalled. It had only a meteorological station and a railway station that was being built.
Located on the China-Kazakhstan border between two mountains, it is known for its strong winds all year round.
She told Beijing Review inside her shop, which sells imported products such as Russian chocolate, that she never had any intention of putting down roots in Alashankou. All she wanted to do was make enough money to take back to her hometown and leave the place behind.
But now, 25 years after she first arrived, things have changed a lot in the place. So has her mind.
A fast-growing city
Despite its harsh natural conditions, Alashankou does have geographical advantages. It is only 12 km from the port of Dostyk in Kazakhstan. Compared with other ports in Xinjiang, it is nearly 1,000 km closer to Europe.
Alashankou became a city in 2012. Since China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative 10 years ago, aiming to strengthen connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes, Alashankou has capitalized on the favorable policies of the initiative to become a major hub connecting China with Central Asia and Europe.
Since the China-Europe freight train service began in 2011, the number of such trains passing through the port has increased from 17 annually initially to over 6,000 currently.
Last year, China-Europe freight trains carried 25.3 million tons of cargo in total. Moreover, these trains connect more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China with 21 countries in the world.
Although the city has no agricultural or mineral resources, the port economy enabled the city to achieve a GDP of 11 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) last year, ranking it among the top cities in the country in terms of per-capita GDP—given its small population of 17,000. GDP matters because it measures the size and health of an economy.
Booming industries
Improvements in port infrastructure have made it easier to move cargo. At an indoor transshipment warehouse operated by Alashankou Railway Station, four giant gantry cranes lift containers from an incoming freight train and transfer them to the other train in the workshop.
The machines can complete the transfer of containers from one train to another in about one hour.
Guo Hua, deputy director of the workshop, told Beijing Review that because China and Kazakhstan have different railway standards, the latter's tracks are 85 mm wider than China's. As a result, outbound freight trains stop at Dostyk port and have their cargo loaded onto a local train, and inbound trains stop at Alashankou to have their cargo loaded onto a train that meets Chinese standards.
Strong winds often interfere with the loading and unloading process. So, in 2008, Alashankou built an indoor workshop. The workshop covers an area of 19,700 square meters, the size of three soccer fields and the largest of its kind in Asia.
It can unload six to eight trains a day. However, with the increasing number of China-Europe freight trains, the workshop can no longer meet the demand. In March, construction began on a new workshop that will greatly improve the station's unloading capacity and further increase the amount of cargo moving through the port. The new workshop will go into operation by the end of this year.
The China-Europe freight trains have brought new development opportunities to the city. Taking advantage of Alashankou's geographical location, the Alashankou Comprehensive Bonded Zone (CBZ), established in 2011, focuses on developing industries such as deep processing of imported agricultural products and export-oriented equipment manufacturing.
The zone has attracted more than 800 enterprises, including industry leaders such as CITIC Group, China National Nuclear Corp. and China Minmetals.
Companies set up within the Alashankou CBZ—a specially designated area under the supervision of China's customs authority that spans 10.9 square km—enjoy favorable taxation policies.
Jinshahe Group, a private agro-processing enterprise producing flour and noodles, set up Alashankou Jinshahe Flour Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in the zone in 2018.
Yin Feihong, head of the company, told Beijing Review that the group chose to set up the company there because of Alashankou's proximity to Kazakhstan. The latter is one of the world's top wheat exporters, and its wheat is known for its high gluten strength and nutritional value.
Yin told Beijing Review that once the wheat enters the zone, it is not subject to import duties, which reduces his company's costs. Now his company can produce 400 tons of noodles a day at full capacity, and its more than 30 categories of products are sold across China.
Eying the geographical position of Alashankou as well as its favorable tax policies, Zheng Jiahong, who had been active in the pipeline industry for more than 20 years, came to Alashankou from Shandong Province in east China with a team of more than 20 to set up Xinbo Oil & Gas Pipeline Co. Ltd. in 2020.
The steel pipelines produced by the company are used for transmitting petroleum, natural gas and water and are sold not only in China, but also to several Central Asian countries.
Zheng told Beijing Review that it saves costs, and amps up efficiency, to transport the pipelines from Alashankou to Central Asia.
Zhou Shanzheng, the company's deputy general manager, said he is confident about the Central Asian market. For example, this year, the company signed a contract to deliver 15,000 tons of steel pipeline to Uzbekistan.
And then there are the new businesses that have sprung up in Alashankou, such as cross-border e-commerce. In 2020, the city established a cross-border e-commerce sorting and customs clearance center in its CBZ, which occupies 28,000 square meters. More than 20 e-commerce companies, including Chinese tech giant Alibaba and American online retailer Amazon, have set up offices at the center.
The goods shipped abroad through Alashankou include toys, clothes and electronics from the Yangtze River and Pearl River delta regions in east and south China respectively. The goods are transported to the zone by highway and exported to countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
In the first half of the year, cross-border e-commerce companies at Alashankou exported 14.31 million parcels, which were worth 1.66 billion yuan ($231 million), up 10.7 percent year on year.
But not only are Chinese products being sold abroad, foreign products are brought into China, with some being sold at local shops in Alashankou as well, such as those in the shop of the businesswoman surnamed He, mentioned at thebeginning.
She has witnessed the development of the city, not only economically but also socially. She told Beijing Review that as more trees have been planted in the city in recent years, there have been fewer high winds, and the city's infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, has also improved. She added that she has grown accustomed to living here and no longer has any desire to leave.
(Reporting from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region)
(Print Edition Title: Land of Opportunity)
Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon
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