Hunchun's growing transport network brings in tourism revenue

The highway and railway connecting Hunchun in Jilin province and Shanghai both extend more than 2,500 kilometers, while sea transportation is shorter.

The road from the Quanhe Port in Hunchun to the port of Rajin in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea extends 52 km. Using the cross-border transport lane for domestic trade goods to reach the Shanghai Port covers only 928 nautical miles.

Plenty of coal, wood and grain have been transported via the lane since 2014. By early May, container ships had made 26 trips from Hunchun to Shanghai via the port of Rajin, according to Jilin Daily.

The Hunchun-Zarubino-Busan railway and maritime combined transport lane has run for two years. By April 25, the lane had seen 98 trips and transported 1,410 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).

Although Hunchun is an inland city, it has become an important window for trade between China and Northeast Asia.

The city uses opening-up to boost its development. Statistics show that Hunchun's international trade reached $384 million in the first quarter of 2017, a year-on-year rise of 35.7 percent.

Local officials in Jilin said that Hunchun, which borders Russia and the DPRK, is a key region for the province's opening-up and also an important city along the Silk Road Economic Belt.

Zhang Jifeng, mayor of Hunchun, said the city has made major progress on transporting cargo by sea via cooperation with ports in other regions and by working to launch the Hunchun-Zarubino-Pohang lane as soon as possible.

As transportation conditions improved, Hunchun has also begun attracting more tourists.

The city received 478,000 tourists in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 47.5 percent. Among them were 128,000 overseas visitors, up 52.3 percent year-on-year, and 350,000 domestic tourists, up 45.8 percent when compared with the same period of 2016.

The city's tourism revenue amounted to 470 million yuan ($69.1 million) in the first three months, a year-on-year rise of 20.5 percent.

Gao Yulong, Party chief of Hunchun, said that opening-up is the driving force of Hunchun's economic development. The city's GDP in the first quarter amounted to nearly 3.26 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 6 percent. It attracted investment worth more than 5 billion yuan in the same period, up 47.13 percent year-on-year.

Gao said Hunchun will focus on building centers for processing energy and minerals, wood products, marine products, trade and logistics, as well as tourism and leisure.

It will promote environmentally friendly development and further strengthen international cooperation and construction of transport infrastructure, Gao added.

Foreign visitors arrive at the Hunchun Port in Jilin.[Photo provided to China Daily]