When the FAW Jiefang J7 pioneering version was launched, a “white paper” produced by a professional organization was simultaneously presented. It recorded the actual road test completed on the Zhengzhou-Moscow TIR transport route spanning more than 9,000 kilometers in August this year. On the one hand, it systematically showed the market space of the transport route to the industry and users for the first time; on the other hand, it showed the real performance of the J7 pioneering version in this nearly 10,000-mile cross-border transport from the perspective of actual operation.
TIR opens up the “fourth channel between Asia and Europe”
TIR stands for the Customs Convention on the International Carriage of Goods under TIR. In layman’s terms, it is a mode of international road freight transport, and today it has developed into an effective tool to enhance the level of international road transport facilitation. At present, 78 contracting parties/parties in the world have joined this convention; there are more than 33,000 TIR certificate holders; and more than 1 million trucks use the TIR system for cross-border transport each year. In 2016, China joined TIR and became the 70th contracting party. According to statistics, as of July 2024, there are 118 TIR certificate holders in China, 360 TIR-approved vehicles, and 13 inland and port customs have carried out exit and entry operations.
Due to the border between China and Russia, the trade volume between China and Russia has exceeded US$240 billion in a short period of time in the past two years, allowing road transportation to replace sea, rail, and air transportation and become the “fourth channel” to connect Europe and Asia. In 2024, a large number of domestic logistics companies paid attention to this “blue ocean” and began to apply for TIR qualifications. The “White Paper” of the J7 Leading Edition tractor was born in this context.
The goods for the Jiefang J7 Leading Edition road test were shipped from Guangzhou, declared in Zhengzhou, passed through Manzhouli, passed through Lake Baikal, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and other places, and finally delivered to Moscow. The entire route is close to 10,000 kilometers, of which overseas sections account for two-thirds, about 7,000 kilometers. In terms of time allocation, the domestic section has a validity period of 2 days, and the foreign section has a validity period of 5 days.
