On November 21, carrying 2,300 international parcels from China, transnational regular train called “Suzhou-Manzhouli-Europe” or “Su-Man-Eur” arrived at Moscow of Russia, marking the first “sea-land-air” international multimodal transport achieved for outbound parcels from Suzhou City instead of only air or sea transport.

Nowadays, with frequent non-governmental exchanges among nations, there is a growing demand for transnational transit of personal articles by international mail on cross-border e-commerce. Through China’s the "Belt and Road" initiative, Suzhou City has been enjoying further trade relations with Russia, Central Asian and European countries. In recent years, this City has made rapid development in cross-border e-commerce, especially exporting parcels on e-commerce. Averagely, Suzhou Customs House(affiliated to Nanjing Customs District) is clearing outbound 80,000-100,000 e-commerce parcels every day, including around 12,000 parcels at 5 tons to Russia. In the past, such parcels were exported only by air, with a high freight cost accounting for no less than 50% of total transaction cost, thus unacceptable to e-commerce users. On July 1, the revised “International Cargo Transport Agreement” took effect to allow transnational railway transport for international parcels, which is much cheaper than air transport - only 1/6 of air freight

To promote “Su-Man-Eur” railway transport, Suzhou Customs made many efforts including repeated coordination with the City’s railway and postal offices to optimize the control over international parcels and containers. Kang Zheng, Deputy Director of Division of Clearance Control in the Customs, indicated that this transnational regular train has opened a new safe and efficient approach not only for personal parcel transit to Europe but also for Suzhou regional export on cross-border e-commerce.