Kazakhstan sees 82% growth in road freight transportation from China

Export-import road freight transportation from China to Kazakhstan grew 82% to 822,000 tons in Q1 2025, whereas rail freight transportation stood at 11.4 million tons, a 13% on-year increase, in four months this year.

Today, a bilateral meeting between Kazakh and Chinese Transport Ministers Marat Karabayev and Liu Wei took place on the sidelines of the first Transport Forum Kazakhstan-China in Astana. During the meeting, the sides discussed a number of ongoing issues and reached agreements.

The interlocutors discussed the creation of the multimodal transit corridor Russia-Kazakhstan-China through the Irtysh River as well as a river route through the Ili River from Kazakhstan’s Konayev to China’s Yining.

The countries also eye construction of a new checkpoint bridge at Maykapshagay-Jeminay border designed for the passage of heavy vehicles as well as opening third air corridor.

The meeting also addressed the opening of two new road checkpoints connecting East Kazakhstan and Almaty regions with neighboring Chinese regions.

To note, a container hub is under construction jointly with the Chinese company at Kazakhstan’s Aktau port, increasing its capacity to 240,000 TEU, set to be commissioned later this year. Construction of the second tracks on Dostyk-Moiynty railway as well as Almaty railway bypass, reducing transit times between Asia and Europe, is also slated for completion by the end of this year.

Kazakhstan and China are to launch a train en-route Almaty-Xi’an as well as boost the number of weekly flights to up to 65.

As earlier reported, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan ramp up cooperation in transport logistics.