On March 25th, Marat Karabaev, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Transport visited Urumqi in China’s western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, home to the International Dry Port, the Express Delivery Center (Jitu Express), the China-Europe Railway Express Hub, and the office of the Xinjiang Trade and Logistics Corporation.
The occasion marked the anniversary of the departure of the 150th container train, Tian Shan, along the China-EU route. During the ceremony, it was stated that over the 10-year period since the launch of China’s Belt and Road initiative in 2013, about 85 thousand container trains were sent from China to Europe; 80% of which had passed through Kazakhstan.
Earlier this month, the Kazakh government announced plans to increase the volume of cargo transported by rail to 450 million tons and by road to 316 million tons. The proposed increase in transit transportation to 30 million tons will include that of cargo along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route to at 4.2 million tons.
