At dawn, the lights of Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport remained bustling with lights on, astwo full cargo flights bound for Budapest, the capital of Hungary, took off within hours. Thanks to in-depth customs cooperation between China and Hungary, the Zhengzhou-Budapest air route registered a total import and export value of over 2.5 billion yuan in the first five months of this year, representing a year-on-year increase of 80.9 percent, according to Zhengzhou Customs on June 10.
The Zhengzhou-Budapest air route has witnessed remarkable expansion since its launch, with weekly flights scaled up from the initial 4 to 14, and has switched to large wide-body freighters like the Boeing 747 and Airbus A330. In the January-May period, the route handled over 22 thousand tons of cargo, up 130 percent year-on-year, making it the busiest air cargo corridor between Central China and Central and Eastern Europe. In the same period, Henan's imports and exports with the European Union reached 47.83 billion yuan, up 10.7 percent year-on-year.
Serving as a key part of the Air Silk Road, the Zhengzhou-Budapest air route vividly embodies Henan's in-depth integration into the Belt and Road Initiative and its continuous efforts to expand high-level opening-up. From January to May, Zhengzhou Customs oversaw 272,800 tons of import and export cargo at Zhengzhou airport, a year-on-year growth of 14 percent. To date, a total of 36 customs-supervised international cargo routes have been put into operation at the airport, linking Henan with 33 cities across 26 countries worldwide. (Chinese source: Henan Daily Reporter: Wang Ge Correspondent: Du Qiang Translator: Zhang Yahan Proofreader: Jiao Dan and Zhao Hanqing)
