According to WGSN, the delivery of goods from Asia to Europe could take half the time with a new rail link that is being built between Beijing and Hamburg. Countries such as China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany signed an agreement earlier this month to simplify customs and border checks to help the service, which is expected to improve trade and allow goods to be delivered in only 18 days, New Zealand Transport & Logistics Business Week reported.

That is a significant cut to the current time taken, with the 10,000km route trimming 22 days off the roughly 40 days taken now with cargo delivered by! sea. Zheng Mingli, chairman of China Railway Container Transport, said a container train should be travelling between China and Germany in a year's time, and a test container left Beijing on January 9 and arrived in Hamburg in 15 days, three days ahead of schedule.