Kazakhstan’s national railway company, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), has announced that the new Zhetysu container terminal in Almaty will receive its first container train on June 10. The train departed from the joint Kazakh-Chinese cargo terminal in Xi’an, China, on June 1.

The Zhetysu terminal is set to become Almaty’s largest container hub for the consolidation and distribution of Chinese goods, handling cargo transported by both rail and road. It will offer comprehensive logistics services, including warehousing, customs clearance, and door-to-door delivery on a “first and last mile” basis.

Strategically located at the intersection of major international transport routes, Zhetysu is expected to play a key role in facilitating cargo movement along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), a growing trade corridor connecting China and Europe via Kazakhstan.

Strategic Synergy with Xi’an Terminal

The terminal will operate in coordination with the Kazakh-Chinese terminal in Xi’an, which became operational in February 2024. That facility has an annual handling capacity of 133,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), significantly boosting bilateral trade and transit freight volumes.

In related news, KTZ reported that the 100,000th container, measured in TEU, has now departed from Xi’an along the TITR. The train, comprising 50 containers, is carrying electronics, furniture, and consumer goods bound for European markets.

Construction has commenced on a high-tech chip and electronics manufacturing plant in the Ondiris industrial zone of Semey, the administrative center of Kazakhstan’s Abai region. The project is being developed by the joint Kazakh-Chinese venture, Suto Kazakhstan.

The initiative was formally presented at the Big Altai international subregional conference held in Altai, located in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. During the forum, 15 memoranda of cooperation were signed between the Abai region and Chinese investors, amounting to a total of $1.5 billion.

$50 Million Investment in High-Tech Infrastructure

The Semey plant, with an investment of $50 million, will be developed in three stages from 2025 to 2028. Once completed, the facility will manufacture microchips, microcircuits, optoelectronic modules, intelligent host controllers, and electronic displays. The products will be supplied to both domestic and international markets.

“A modern microchip manufacturing plant labeled ‘Made in Kazakhstan’ will appear in Semey. We have been allocated a 20-hectare site. In the first stage, we will build the main building and production facilities. If we manage to complete construction within 90 days, we will immediately launch the first line,” said Suto Kazakhstan founder Ernur Bolatuly. “Our main goal is to establish the production of chips that have never before been manufactured in Kazakhstan only assembled.”

Broader Context of Technological Expansion

The project is part of a broader effort by Kazakhstan to position itself as a technological hub in Central Asia. As previously reported by The Times of Central Asia, in May 2025, the country received the region’s most powerful supercomputer, further demonstrating its ambitions in high-performance computing and digital infrastructure.