Compared with any port along the prosperous east coast of
China, trade figures at the land port of Erenhot, a small Gobi town on the
China-Mongolia border, are meager. However, about 800 cars, 200 trucks, six
trains and 4,000 traders cross the border each day, bringing a bustle to
Erenhot”s wholesale markets, shops, restaurants, and hotels that take
“International” or “Pacific” in their names.

Erenhot, in the north of China”s Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region, sits on the China-Mongolia-Russia railway and has served
largely as a land port for goods traded between China and Russia since the
railway opened in 1956. “Now, most of the goods at Erenhot are traded
between China and Mongolia,” Erenhot Mayor Meng Xiandong told Xinhua for
an article published to mark Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Mongolia.

The port is the largest of a dozen of ports along the
4,600-km China-Mongolia border, where the trade volume accounts for 70 percent
of that between the two countries and is the economic lifeline to 2.7 million
Mongolians in the mainly prairie country.

Figures from the municipal government show China-Russia
trade through Erenhot dropped from 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2004 to 591
million dollars in 2009. The change was due in part to China”s imports of oil
from Russia being channeled to Manzhouli on the China-Russia border.

Meanwhile, China-Mongolia trade through the port surged
from 700 million to 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in the same period as bilateral
trade boomed, Meng said.