Rail border crossings between Kazakhstan and China are heavily congested

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Kazakhstan and China will open an additional rail border crossing

Rail border crossings between Kazakhstan and China are heavily congested. As a result, Kazakhstan halted container and grain trains going to the Chinese border on…

www.railfreight.com

Kazakhstan and China will open an additional rail border crossing​

Published on 17-09-2024 at 11:39

Rail border crossings between Kazakhstan and China are heavily congested. As a result, Kazakhstan halted container and grain trains going to the Chinese border on two occasions earlier this year. The situation has become untenable, and now the two countries want to open an entirely new border crossing.

Kazakhstan and China are planning to open the new border crossing by 2027, reports Kazakh publication LS. It will be located close to the town of Bakhty, at the far end of a new rail line that Kazakhstan is building. That line will have a total length of 272 kilometres, and the entire project is projected to cost around 1 billion euros.

Overloaded border crossings

The border crossing is planned to have a throughput capacity of 20 million tonnes annually. Its aim is to decongest the Dostyk and Atynkol border crossings, which are currently overloaded, according to LS.

Already twice this year, Kazakhstan has had to implement a temporary stop on trains heading to China because border crossings were overflowing. In April, the country put a stop on grain trains on the way to China, and in early September container trains were halted.

 

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200th Container Train from China Arrives in Kazakhstan’s Aktau Port on Middle Corridor - The Times Of Central Asia

A container train from China arrived last week in the port of Aktau on Kazakhstan’s Caspian coast. Kazakhstan’s national railway company, Kazakhstan Temir

timesca.com

200th Container Train from China Arrives in Kazakhstan’s Aktau Port on Middle Corridor​

16 sep 2024

A container train from China arrived last week in the port of Aktau on Kazakhstan’s Caspian coast. Kazakhstan’s national railway company, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, announced that it was the 200th container train since the beginning of 2024. Last year, 11 container trains went through Aktau Port along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), known as the Middle Corridor.

The Middle Corridor is an 11,000-kilometer international multimodal transport corridor that runs from China to Europe via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Black Sea, and Turkey.

The container train originally departed from the Kazakhstan terminal in Xi’an (China). From Aktau, it will depart for Azerbaijan on a barge across the Caspian Sea.

The Kazakh terminal in Xi’an is an important logistics hub that consolidates cargo from various provinces of China. It has given a new impetus to the development of the TITR.

In November 2023, Kazakhstan and China signed a number of agreements to develop the TITR, including a route for China-Europe container trains.

Middle Corridor Multimodal Ltd. is a joint venture that was established at the Astana International Financial Center, bringing together the railway administrations of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to manage the route on a parity basis.

The Kazakhstani terminal in the dry port of Xi’an opened in February 2024. It consolidates 40% of all container trains heading towards Kazakhstan, which has contributed to a significant increase in transit traffic along the TITR.

Transportation along the TITR is growing steadily. In 2023, 2.8 million tons of cargo were transported along the route, compared to about 1.7 million tons in 2022. In the first seven months of 2024, the traffic totaled 2.56 million tons. By 2027, the capacity of the TITR is planned to increase to 10 million tons.

 

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China-Europe freight train trips up 12 percent year on year in Jan-Aug period

Cross-border China-Europe freight train trips have witnessed robust growth, with the total number su

www.bastillepost.com

China-Europe freight train trips up 12 percent year on year in Jan-Aug period​

2024-09-18 21:24 Last Updated At：22:07

Cross-border China-Europe freight train trips have witnessed robust growth, with the total number surging 12 percent year-on-year in the first eight month of 2024, according to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) on Wednesday.

Data show that the total number of China-Europe freight train trips hit 13,056 in the Jan-Aug period of this year. In addition, 1.399 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of goods were sent out via the operation of China-Europe freight trains in the eight-month period, up 11 percent year on year.

In August alone, there were 1,653 China-Europe freight train trips, carrying 173,000 TEUs of goods, marking the sixth consecutive month so far this year with monthly operations exceeding 1,600 train trips.

 

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Kazakhstan welcomes EU’s plan to invest in Middle Corridor development | News.az

During a meeting with Central Asian leaders and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Astana, Tokayev highlighted that expanding the Middle Corridor offers...

news.az

Kazakhstan welcomes EU’s plan to invest in Middle Corridor development​

• 17 Sep 2024 12:53

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has expressed support for the EU’s plan to invest in the development of the Middle Corridor.

During a meeting with Central Asian leaders and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Astana, Tokayev highlighted that expanding the Middle Corridor offers significant investment opportunities, including the upgrade and digitization of Caspian Sea ports and the construction of cargo terminals, News.Az reports.

He emphasized the importance of integrating transport and logistics systems between Central Asia and Europe and welcomed Europe’s commitment of 10 billion euros through the Global Gateway program to advance the Middle Corridor.

Tokayev also voiced hope for Germany’s support in connecting the Middle Corridor with the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and the Global Gateway strategy.

The Global Gateway Investors Forum, held in Brussels on January 29-30, outlined key priorities for enhancing EU-Central Asia transport connectivity. The forum aims to transform the Trans-Caspian transport corridor into a more sustainable, safer, and efficient route, reducing travel time between Europe and Central Asia to within 15 days.