XI'AN, Nov. 28 -- China's Xi'an, the capital of the northwestern Shaanxi Province, has handled over 20,000 China-Europe freight trains in 10 years, according to the China Railway Xi'an Group Co., Ltd.

On Tuesday morning, a train loaded with daily necessities, fitness equipment and other goods departed from the Xi'an International Trade and Logistics Park, bound for Hamburg in Germany. It was the 20,897th China-Europe freight train operated by Xi'an since the service's inception in the city on Nov. 28, 2013.

The volume of China-Europe freight trains to and from Xi'an has increased steadily each year since 2013, particularly from 2019 to 2021, with the annual number of trains exceeding 2,000 in 2019, 3,000 in 2020 and 3,800 in 2021, said Wang Baolu, director of the Xi'an International Trade and Logistics Park.

As of Tuesday, Xi'an has operated 4,843 China-Europe freight trains this year, an increase of 13.77 percent from the same period last year. The city expects its total number of trains operated this year to surpass 5,000.

To date, there are 17 international China-Europe freight train routes linking Xi'an with major source locations in Eurasia.