Kazakhstan’s national railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) reports that from January-May 2024 it transported 102.4 million tons of cargo. Over 34.2 million tons of this cargo were exported by rail.
During the first five months of the year, rail transportation of coal amounted to 40.6 million tons, including 30.3 million tons within the country.
Over the same period, over 3.7 million tons of grain were transported by rail. Exports of oil by rail increased by 9.5% (2.3 million tons), ferrous metals by 5% (1.4 million tons), chemical fertilizers by 12% (over 550,000 tons), iron ore and manganese by 8.4% (4.7 million tons), and construction materials by 9% (142,000 tons).
KTZ also reported that the Caspian port of Aktau handled over 5,100 shipping containers in May 2024, setting its own record for the monthly container handling volume. Over the five months of this year, 15,800 containers were handled, double the volume in the same period in 2023.
“Since the beginning of the year, there has been a high growth in container traffic through the port of Aktau,” said the seaport’s chief dispatcher Vadim Novikov. “Container transit from China along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) accounted for the lion’s share of the traffic, which has grown 10-fold due to the launch of the Kazakh-Chinese terminal in Xi’an.”
