As part of their green logistics project GIZ jointly organized a study tour for Chinese government officials to Germany with the Chinese Ministry of Transport in July 2013. The aim of this study tour was to introduce best practice examples of logistic cooperation and freight villages to the delegates in order to enable them to review existing procedures in terms of climate impacts as well as to develop new specifications in the field of logistics.

After a successful study tour in September 2012 on the potential of cooperation of small and medium size enterprises in logistics the Ministry of Transport had made cooperation a key measure to increase the energy efficiency in the sector. Since more than 90% of the logistics companies are small and medium sized, increasing their energy efficiency is the sectors crucial challenge. During the study tour the delegates got an in-depth understanding of energy efficiency in logistic cooperation and evaluated possibilities of application in China. In addition, the gained knowledge is intended to be transferred to the national guideline on logistics cooperation of Ministry of Transport later in 2013.

As the concept origins in Germany, freight villages (Güterverteilzentren – GVZ) were made the second focus of the study tour. The delegates visited the first freight village in Bremen and other successful freight villages like GVZ Berlin Sued, GVZ Leipzig and GVZ Dresden. At the sites the focus was on the integration of environmental friendly transport modes like rail- and waterways, which is not common in Chinese logistic parks. Nevertheless, as the Ministry of Railway has been included into the Ministry of Transport in April 2013, an integration of different transport means might be more likely from now on. As a conclusion, the delegates stated to be impressed by the intermodal transport in freight villages and said that they would like to support an introduction and promotion of the concept after their return to China.