ASTANA (TCA) — At the meeting of the Kazakhstan-China Border Railroads Commission held in Astana last week, the head of Kazakhstan’s national railways company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), Askar Mamin, and the Chief of Urumchi Railway Shan’ Liczyun expressed the readiness to increase the container shipment volumes along the China-Europe-China route through Kazakhstan, and agreed on the volume of cargo transportation through the Kazakh-Chinese railway border in 2017 to reach 11.5 million tons, the press service of KTZ said.
The parties intend to work together to increase the cargo flows by improving the quality of services and organization of straight-through trains on the routes China-Kazakhstan-Europe-China and China-Kazakhstan-Central Asia-China and the development of new transportation projects.
In recent years, both sides have carried out extensive work to develop the international transportation and increase the capacity of the Dostyk and Alashankou rail stations, and increase the cargo traffic along the Altynkol–Khorgos rail line.
In 2015, the volume of cargo transportation between Kazakhstan and China amounted to 7.089 million tons. In the first seven months of 2016, 4.495 million tons of cargo was transported through the railway border Dostyk-Alashankou and Altynkol-Khorgos, 127 thousand tons more than in the same period of 2015. It is planned to transport up to 9 million tons of cargo by the end of this year, 23 percent more than last year.
During the seven months of this year, 554 container trains passed along the China-Europe-China route through the territory of Kazakhstan, 2.5-fold more compared with the same period of 2015.
