This is a

This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, January 17th, 2017. I'm Caleb Brown. This week a train carrying goods from China will arrive in Great Britain. That may not seem like a big deal, but the

18-day journey is the beginning of an important trading relationship.

Christine Galusian, a visiting research fellow at the Cato Institute, explains the importance.

The Silk Road route is a project conceptualized by China's President Shijimping in 2013,

and the point of it is to build a series of routes across continents

overland and by sea.

So that constitutes a maritime component of the One belt one road as it's also called.

The point of it is, well it's a domestic project really, that's where the idea came from.

It has to do with China's economy slowing down from double digit growth into single digit growth

Changing its economy structure from a manufacturing one to a consumer-based one so opening up new markets abroad and also to help mitigate the regional disparities

within China between the east and west.

So in that regard, for instance, this new freight line from China to the UK starts off in the eastern province of China and it ends up in

East London in the UK.

Now that's a, I mean it's according to the figures that some news reports have laid out 7,500 miles crossing through seven

countries to get there. Presumably these countries have to accommodate this

train traveling all the way from China to London?

Well, it's in their best interest to do so because the train is also going back to China

with their own goods on board, so it helps with trade in terms of European cities and China.

Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France,

and of course China and the UK are the countries that this

rail line is traveling through.

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