China-Europe trains now run more trips back to China than out, but each return train carries fewer boxes

What did China report? Liang Linchong, head of the regional opening-up department at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said on November 11 that the China-Europe Railway Express ran 18,661 trains from January to October 2026 and carried 1.865 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), up 14.6% and 11.2% from a year earlier. Of those trains, 9,360 ran from Europe to China and 9,301 from China to Europe, a return-to-outbound ratio of 100.6%. He added that the loaded-container rate has stayed at 100% for 50 consecutive months as of October.

Is trade on the route now balanced? Not in containers. Data from China State Railway Group for January to September, compiled by the Eurasian rail analytics site Index1520 on November 2, show 8,383 westbound and 8,307 eastbound China-Europe trains, including services to Russia and Belarus. Westbound trains carried 886,293 TEU and eastbound trains 785,323 TEU, about 101,000 fewer, or 105.7 against 94.5 TEU per train. In that series, return trains were still 76 fewer than outbound through September. The NDRC did not split its 1.865 million TEU by direction, and the two counts come from different releases, so CSP did not combine them.

What changes for shippers? Predictability. Liang said 22 trains a week now run on end-to-end timetables, with fixed train numbers, routes, days and running times, between 9 Chinese cities and 6 European cities. Trans-Caspian corridor trains now run daily, and the northern, central and southern routes are operating normally. China Railway said on October 22 that the southern route ran 746 trains from January to September, up 125%. Next steps listed by the NDRC include easier customs clearance and new multimodal routes.

Why does the return leg matter to those selling to China? Because it carries Chinese demand. Liang cited Spanish wine and Dutch cheese bought by Chinese consumers through the service's trade platform, and said China's imports from Belt and Road partner countries grew 17.9% in the first three quarters, 1.3 percentage points faster than exports. Bian Yongzu, of Modernization of Management magazine, told the Global Times that fuller return trains spread round-trip costs over more cargo, at a time when the logistics cost in China has already fallen to 13.8% of GDP. The data also match the October picture, when imports into China grew faster than exports.

CSP view: counting trains makes the corridor look balanced; counting boxes does not yet. For European exporters, more eastbound trains mean more regular departures toward China rather than a shortage of space. For companies outside the corridor, including Brazilian ones, the relevance is competitive: European suppliers selling food and consumer goods to China now have a scheduled land route alongside the sea. This reading is ours, not the NDRC's.