With the overall situation of the national epidemic showing a steady decline, the national railway passenger and freight transportation will begin to concentrate efforts to ensure the increase in freight and passenger transportation. China National Railway Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “National Railway Group”) recently increased the national railway freight target for the year by 100 million tons to about 3.9 billion tons, an increase of nearly 3 percentage points year-on-year to about 5%; In the last seven months, the number of passengers sent has returned to the level of the same period last year. On May 30, the National Railway Group held a video and teleconference on the whole railway to announce the above content.
In 2021, the national railway freight volume will be 3.72 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 4.0%. At the railway-wide working meeting held on January 4, 2022, the National Railway Group set a target of 3.804 billion tons of national railway cargo delivery in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 2.1%.
Comparing the railway freight volume data in the past five years, it shows that although the railway freight volume is increasing, the growth rate is constantly narrowing. From 2017 to 2021, the national railway freight growth was 10.1%, 9.3%, 7.8%, 4.07% and 4.0%, respectively. The railway freight growth in 2021 was the lowest in the past five years. In other words, after 2020, the growth rate of railway freight will no longer exceed 5%. After adjusting the freight target, the growth rate of railway freight this year is expected to end the downward trend.
In fact, the volume of railway freight has continued to maintain a rapid growth trend recently. According to data released by the China Railway Group, a total of 1.278 billion tons of goods were sent in the first four months of 2022, a year-on-year increase of 4.50%, of which 330 million tons were sent in April, a year-on-year increase of 10.1%. At the same time, the cumulative monthly growth of railway freight volume has been obvious. In the first month of 2022, railway freight volume experienced a brief decline, and the growth rate in the following two months and the first quarter was 0.33% and 2.71% respectively (see China Business Network’s report on May 7 for details. “Railway freight volume increased at a high rate of over 4%, “May 1st” passenger volume fell by nearly 80%”).
In terms of passenger transport, the China Railway Group said that it is expected that the passenger volume in the next seven months will return to the level of the same period last year. Comparing the data in 2021, it is found that in the next seven months of 2021, a total of 1.493 billion passengers will be sent by railways across the country, with an average of 213 million passengers per month. In the first four months of 2022, the national railways sent a total of 528 million passengers, an average of 132 million passengers per month. According to the adjusted passenger traffic target of China National Railway Group, the average monthly passenger volume in the second seven months of 2022 will increase by 61.36% compared with the average monthly passenger volume in the first four months.
Although from the target data, the passenger volume in the second seven months of 2022 will be significantly higher than the first five months, but considering that the passenger flow in the first half of 2022 is too low, the China Railway Group actually lowered the passenger traffic target for 2022. .
At the full-rail working conference in early 2022, a person from the China Railway Group stated that the national railway passenger volume target in 2022 will be 3.038 billion passengers, a year-on-year increase of 20%. According to the new target adjusted by the National Railway Group on May 30, the national railway passenger volume will only reach about 2.2 billion in 2022, of which the national railway passenger volume will only reach about 2.1 billion. The new target for passenger traffic is about 900 million less than the original target, a decrease of about 17% year-on-year in 2021, and the passenger flow can only recover to 58.68% of the pre-epidemic level.
Affected by the epidemic, the number of railway passengers sent across the country has continued to decline since 2022. In April, the national railways sent only 57 million passengers, a year-on-year decrease of 79.8%. This is the lowest point in history since the establishment of China National Railway Group and its predecessor China Railway Corporation after the revocation of the Ministry of Railways in 2013.
The monthly data fell to the bottom, and the cumulative data also showed a sharp drop. Data from the National Railway Administration shows that in the first four months of 2022, the number of passengers sent by railway nationwide was 528 million, a year-on-year decrease of 36.1%. The current railway passenger volume is only 40% of the same period in 2019 before the epidemic.
In 2021, the number of national railway passengers will reach 2.53 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%. In 2021, railway passenger flow will recover to 70.69% of the pre-epidemic level.
