Lishui Dry Port in East China's Zhejiang province was recently rated as one of the best achievements to date of the project initiated by the Zhejiang government, which enables the developed coastal areas to help the relatively less developed mountain areas.

The mountainous city of Lishui and the coastal city Ningbo joined hands in July 2017 and built Lishui Dry Port to develop combined sea-rail transport and for customs clearances.

The facility is a public logistics platform built to improve Lishui's investment environment and to speed up the development of an export-oriented economy.

Leveraging the resource advantages of the ports in Ningbo, Lishui Dry Port has launched a combined sea-rail transport service to Ningbo's Beilun Port. This provides efficient logistics services for more than 30 foreign trading companies in Liandu, Jinyun and Qingtian counties administered by Lishui.

"Through Lishui Dry Port's sea-rail combined transport, we can save more than 700,000 yuan ($106,575) in overland logistics costs per year," said an executive with the Lishui-based Nice Group.

In the first 10 months of the current year, with the combined sea-rail transport system in place, Lishui Dry Port handled 8,556 TEUs – twenty-foot equivalent units, or standard containers – an 11.3 percent increase on the same period last year, according to official data.