NUR-SULTAN – The transit volume of cargo through Kazakhstan increased 54 percent from January to June as compared to the same period last year, reported Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) national railway company press service. Transportation reached a capacity of more than 450,200 twenty-foot equivalent (TEU).
The Chinese cargo transited through Altynkol station to the Aktau port and further shipped to the Azerbaijani port, the Georgian station to finally reach Izmir, Turkey. Photo credit: KTZ facebook page.
“KTZ followed the results of work for the first half of 2020 and noted good trends in the volumes of transit container freight transportation. In June of this year, despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the economically difficult situation throughout the world, about 105,000 TEU were transported through Kazakhstan, which is twice more than in June 2019,” KTZ said in a statement.
KTZ plans to maintain a high speed of movement through the territory of Kazakhstan, reduce administrative barriers, modernize infrastructure, optimize processes at Dostyk and Altynkol stations, and shorten delivery times, the company said.
Dostyk and Altynkol are key stations that carry transit to China. In late June, 9,000 Kazakh wagons with goods heading to China got held up in the stations because of the small volume of train passage per day.
The KZT and Urumchi railways discussed possibilities to increase train volume across the border crossings Dostyk-Alashankou and Altynkol-Khorgos during a June 22 videoconference.
The parties agreed to deliver up to 16-18 trains on a narrow track and 12 on a wider track per day from Dostyk to Alashankou station in the near future. At the Altynkol-Khorgos border crossing, up to 14-16 trains along the narrow track and up to 6-8 trains per day on the wide track.
The parties are mutually interested in increasing the freight volume between the countries in the future. The Chinese side told KTZ about their plans to increase investment in the development of the Khorgos station to increase its throughput.
KTZ is part of the Samruk Kazyna State Welfare Fund. The company manages the railway, sea port and airport infrastructures, as well as transport, and logistics centers.
