U-Freight Group has added a second consolidation centre in the People’s Republic in response to increasing volumes of LCL cargo on its LCL and FCL rail freight services between China and Europe. The company started its regular service in 2014, consolidating cargo in Zhengzhou and using the daily service that operates from that railhead to and from Malaszewicze in Poland, Hamburg in Germany and Liege in Belgium. A spike in LCL traffic as a greater number of shippers switch from air and ocean to the overland mode has led U-Freight to establish a consolidation centre at its logistics hub in Shanghai.

“As an early adopter of this routing option, we have developed a strong position in the market,” said Simon Wong, chief executive officer of the U-Freight Group. “We now handle significant consol shipments from China to Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and The Netherlands in particular, as well as smaller volumes to other European countries, handled by our network of long standing agents once the shipments arrive at the three rail freight hubs on the European mainland.”

“We chose the service from Zhengzhou as it is the only one that offers a daily frequency, although for FCL shipments our large Chinese presence enables us to arrange container pickup from across the country and select a service from the rail freight gateway that is nearest to our customers. While other transport modes still face significant capacity and schedule issues, our overland rail freight service is clearly demonstrating that it offers a competitive alternative to air freight in regards to price, and considerably faster transit times compared to the ocean freight alternative,” he continued.

About U-Freight Group

UFL has established itself as a global leader in providing freight forwarding and logistics solutions since 1968. Today, we have wholly owned subsidiaries throughout Asia, North America and Europe, owned offices in 17 countries, as well exclusive agency operations in more than 150 cities across the globe. These strategic partnerships have been carefully developed and are long-standing. With our own operations in China, we remain one of the few foreign transportation companies fully licensed to operate a network of offices in the Peoples Republic, UFL gives unrivalled access to one of the most important manufacturing economies in the 21st century.