One of the drawbacks to China is its comparatively higher logistics costs, which are partly a result of inadequate infrastructure or use thereof. This report from China Logistics News contains some interesting numbers on intermodal traffic being handled by rail in China:

Last year, only 1.5 percent of the China’s total container turnover of 75.8 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent of units so think of it as one container) was shipped to and from ports through railways.

According to the Ministry of Communications this is far below the 30 percent in Canada and Australia. In fact, in both those countries there are constant complaints that rail is being underutilized and efforts are in hand to move the percentages higher. The United States is about 49 percent, France 40 percent and Britain 30 percent.

As with just about everything else, China is not sitting on its hands but is planning massive investment in intermodal rail projects:

The Ministry of Railways expects the rail containerized cargo volume will increase to 10 million TEUs in 2010 — and that seems a fairly solid figure — which would mean aims to keep up with the increase in containers and move it up a bit.

As reported the ministry has formed a large-scale Sino-overseas rail joint venture to get funding and management experience. NWS Holdings, the public works and transport unit of Hong Kong real estate developer New World Development, plans to form an RMB12 billion ($1.53 billion) joint venture with mainland rail transport firms to develop and manage 18 large-scale pivotal rail container terminals in 18 major cities on the Chinese mainland.

Read the whole thing.

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