In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, businesses around the world started taking some serious pounding because of disrupted east-west supply chains, unpredictable demand and soaring inflation.

But business is booming at one particular point on the border between Poland and Belarus. It is the Polish city of Terespol, where both rail and road border crossings meet.

On average, 14 cargo trains, the majority from China, arrive here every day carrying goods from the East into Europe. That translates to around 9,000 tonnes of goods entering the EU every day.

CGTN witnessed a Belarus locomotive hauling a long train composition full of containers towards the cargo terminal in Terespol. All those containers will be quickly unloaded from the carriages, and then more containers full of goods from EU are loaded back on to the carriages to travel back to Asia, with most of them bound for China.

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The EU and China are two of the world's three largest traders, with China's exports to the EU in 2021 exceeding $460 billion worth of goods, and the EU's exports to China totaling about $220 billion.

A significant chunk of that trade is done via cargo trains connecting China and the EU, with Poland being the main transit point. One of the reasons for the business boom here, despite the Ukraine crisis, is the expansion of e-commerce trade.

Back in the Polish capital Warsaw, CGTN met Cory Streiff, a programmer from the U.S. who got married to a local Polish girl and moved here several years ago. He has always purchased a variety of stuff from AliExpress.

"If you look at some of the Chinese e-commerce sites, you have things for a lower price, or maybe sometimes the same product, just for a lower price," Streiff said. "It takes a bit longer to arrive, but for some bigger purchases, it can make sense."

Streiff has just received a tent he bought from AliExpress. The longer wait was worth it for the cost saving. Now, shortening those wait times is within reach for people like Streiff, as the first postal train carrying thousands of parcels to EU customers recently arrived in Terespol from China's city of Xi'an. 

From there, the Polish Post distributes those parcels throughout the EU, significantly cutting delivery time.

While business is booming on the railways in Terespol, for cargo truckers traversing Poland it is a very different experience. CGTN encountered a queue of trucks waiting to enter Belarus that stretched farther than the eye could see – some 15 kilometers. 

Zeljko Lukic is a truck driver from Serbia who carried goods to a buyer in Belarus.

"I arrived yesterday at 11 a.m. and in this time I moved forward two kilometers," he said while sitting behind the steering wheel of his truck, kilometers away from the nearest petrol station. 

"You can see the conditions we are in. There is nothing civilized about this. No facilities whatsoever. And also there is a risk from the cars just flying past."

Truckers from Poland, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia and many others can wait here up to seven days to cross into Belarus. Despite the delays, even in times of crisis, business finds a way to overcome barriers.