A set of China-produced subway trains were shipped to Portugal through Tianjin port, the nation's first urban railway trains exported to the EU, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) of China announced. The 18 trains produced by CRRC Tangshan Co can hold up to 346 passengers and weigh 28.4 tons each, and can reach a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour. The contract was signed in January 2020 between CRRC Tangshan and the Portuguese state-owned enterprise Metro do Porto. Production started in November 2021 and was finished in about eight months. The overall contract value reached €49.57 million and included five years of maintenance, according to China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).
According to railway information site Railway-technology.com, Metro do Porto is operating a network of six subway lines and 82 stations in Porto, the second-largest city of Portugal, serving more than 71 million commuters in 2019. In order to meet the increasing demands of local residents, Metro do Porto is expanding its metro network. The overall metro expansion project will add seven stations and more than six kilometers of railways to the network, according to the website, and the new subway trains will be deployed on all lines of the local rail network.
Trade between China and the EU reached USD645.95 billion in the first three quarters of 2022. Bilateral trade between China and Portugal came in at USD7 billion during the period, rising by 9.8% year-on-year. China-Germany bilateral trade grew by 0.9% during the first three quarters of the year to USD173.57 billion, far lower than China's overall foreign trade growth of 8.7%. Over the period, China's imports from Germany fell 6.1% to USD84.71 billion, while China's exports to Germany grew 8.6% to reach USD88.86 billion. Among major EU economies, the Netherlands saw its foreign trade with China grow by 19.9% year-on-year during the period, Italy's was up 13.2%, while France's trade with China fell 0.1%, the Global Times reports.
