ASTANA (TCA) — A cargo train service between Ganzhou in east China’s Jiangxi Province and Kazakhstan was launched on July 27, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
A train carrying 100 containers loaded with furniture, clothes and electronic goods departed from Ganzhou on July 27 and is expected to arrive in Kazakhstan in 12 days.
Kazakhstan is the third Central Asian destination from the port, following Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, said Zhong Dingyan, deputy head of Nankang District in Ganzhou.
Links to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are expected in the near future, he said.
A hub for railways, roads and shipping transportation along the Yangtze River, Ganzhou is striving to become an international cargo distribution center for China’s Belt and Road initiative, a multi-billion dollar project to connect China and South East Asia to Central Asia, Russia, Middle East, and Europe.
About five million tons of cargo was transported between Kazakhstan and China during the first half of this year, a 26-percent increase on-year, Kazakhstan’s national railways company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) said.
A total of 499 container trains passed through the Alashankou-Dostyk railway crossing on the Kazakh-Chinese border and 221 container trains ran through Khorgos-Altynkol border crossing.
Expected volume of traffic for the second half of the year is about 5.7 million tons.
