BUDAPEST, July 1 (Xinhua) -- At a 33,000-square-meter warehouse in the Hungarian town of Vac, about 35 kms north of Budapest, robots glide among towering shelves, retrieving, sorting and dispatching parcels with remarkable precision.
The warehouse, part of the Vac Smart Fulfillment Center, is one of the largest and most highly automated shared smart warehousing facilities in Central and Eastern Europe, local officials told Xinhua during a recent visit.
Instead of the constant bustle typical of traditional logistics centers, the scene here is strikingly quiet. A young worker scans a parcel; its information is instantly logged into the system, and within seconds, a conveyor belt carries it away. From that point on, nearly everything is handled by around 700 robots. Human intervention is rarely needed as the warehouse operates almost entirely on its own.
This fully automated overseas warehouse serves cross-border e-commerce companies, including Temu, AliExpress and SHEIN. It can store 20,000 standard European pallets and 110,000 bins for small items, while processing up to 150,000 parcels a day.
The facility represents a key component of the Central European Trade and Logistics Cooperation Zone (CECZ), whose high level of automation supports the region's rapidly growing e-commerce sector. Located beside a major highway and directly connected to railway lines, the zone has become a vital hub along an important intercontinental logistics corridor.
At the heart of that corridor is the China-Europe Railway Express, which marks the 10th anniversary of its unified brand this year. Over the past decade, the steady growth in rail cargo has transformed the zone from a logistics park focused initially on warehousing and transportation into a comprehensive trade and distribution center.
"Stability and predictability matter most when companies choose transport options," said Balazs Gazso, chief executive officer of CECZ Logistic Park Management. "The China-Europe Railway Express offers stable and reliable services, which are crucial for our clients."
Today, goods arriving at the zone can be unloaded, sorted, cleared through customs, unpacked and distributed before being shipped to destinations across Europe.
Gazso said the reliability of the railway has attracted companies that might otherwise have chosen alternative transport routes. "As one of the hubs for China-Europe Railway Express, we are well located, with access to almost any destination in Central and even Western Europe," he said.
The growing volume of cargo has further improved the zone's efficiency.
Procedures, which once took weeks, can now be completed within days through system integration, said Attila Szegedi, chief operating officer and IT director of CECZ Logistic Park Management. He added that the zone has helped ease the pressure on airports as China-Europe cross-border e-commerce continues to expand.
According to Li Haitao, deputy general manager of the zone, the Vac Smart Fulfillment Center has established cooperation with multiple China-Europe Railway Express routes, serving as a consolidation hub in Central and Eastern Europe for services such as the Qilu and Gan-Europe lines. It also distributes cargo arriving via the sea-rail intermodal corridor linking the Chinese eastern city of Ningbo and Budapest.
The project has also received strong backing from the Hungarian government. In March 2022, the Ministry of Finance designated it as "a key project related to the Hungarian national economy." In February 2024, the Ministry for National Economy granted the center Hungary's first official license for an e-commerce logistics park.
Inside the warehouse, the atmosphere remains calm, almost silent. Yet loads of parcels - many of them from China - move continuously along conveyor belts toward sorting areas bound for destinations across Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. Guided by algorithms and robots rather than forklifts and crowds of workers, they quietly complete the final stages of a journey that connects Chinese manufacturers with households across the continent.
