There is serious talk about a viable rail link between China and Germany. The track exists but until now the bureaucracy and border crossing issues negated any benefit from the conventional sea freight option.
Due to the massive increase of imports from China, the capacities of shipping and ports is reaching overload and this has brought the matter to a head.
A trial has recently been run with a container train which took only 18 days; compared to the 4 weeks or more by sea. DGI would welcome any improvement in delivery times for its casting products from China.