Cargo Traffic of KTZE-Khorgos Gateway Dry Port on Kazakh-Chinese Border Continues Operation Despite Pandemic

NUR-SULTAN – The KTZE-Khorgos Gateway dry port connecting Kazakhstan and China is the most important transport and logistics center of Kazakhstan. It also connects the markets of China and Europe, passing through the countries of Central Asia, Turkey and the countries of the Persian Gulf. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the passage of cargo flows on this route is increasing, Kazinform reported.  

Click on the picture to see the map. Photo credit: Khorgosgateway.kz.

The KTZE-Khorgos Gateway was established in 2015 and became the largest in Central Asia, with a total area of 129.5 hectares. It is located near the city of Zharkent in the Almaty region on the border of Kazakhstan and China. 

The port performs various cargo operations: receiving and sending trains, reloading cargo from cars of one-gauge width (1435 mm) to cars of another width (1520 mm) and vice versa, reloading trucks, forming container trains, as well as operations performed at warehouses and container sites: loading, sorting, storage, dispatch of goods, storage of dangerous goods and with certain temperature requirements, and so on. 

Photo credit: Khorgosgateway.kz.

“Our work is in full swing. Now we are loading containers, we will send them further to Europe. We process 10-12 trains per day, which is 500 containers. We unload them with a narrow gauge and send them on a wide gauge,” said Nuriddin Abaydulayev, the manager of the production department.  

According to Abaydulayev, three gantry container cranes – RMG 1, 2 and 3-operate on six railway tracks. Each can lift cargo weighing up to 41 tons. The average reloading time of one container train consisting of 45 to 50 cars is 55 minutes. 

The territory also has a specialized container platform for the one-time storage of more than 18 thousand containers of TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit), two temporary storage warehouses with a total area of 10 000 square meters (there is also refrigeration equipment for perishable products), as well as its own workshop for the repair and maintenance of special equipment. 

Some 180 people work at the KTZE-Khorgos Gateway. There were no reductions during the lockdown, on the contrary, the volume of work increased. 

He explained that the port works around the clock and can receive and send 24 trains a day. In 2020, the volume of traffic amounted to 200,000 TEU. For six months of this year, they have already managed to transport 102,000 TEU, which is about 80-90,000 containers. The increase in the load is due to the closure of the border for motor vehicles. 

Mainly, consumer goods, metals, chemicals, oversized cargo, metro cars, electric cars are transported between the countries. It is worth noting that the port is the most powerful terminal at the Altynkol station. It is equipped with modern transshipment equipment, the latest automated accounting system for wagons and containers and provides a full range of services in the field of processing, storage and transshipment of goods passing through the Kazakh-Chinese border.


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