At a meeting in Almaty on October 21, Kazakhstan's Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin and Afghanistan's Minister of Industry and Commerce Nuriddin Azizi addressed the logistics of transportation of goods from China to Afghanistan and back through Kazakhstan. In June, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that his country had removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations in a move to develop trade and economic ties with Afghanistan. In late August, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry accredited a chargé d’affaires of Taliban-led Afghanistan to expand trade, financial, and humanitarian cooperation between the two countries. As the Kazakh Ministry of Trade and Integration reported, one critical issue is the reverse loading of railcars and containers on their way back from Afghanistan. To reduce the cost of logistics, Kazakhstan is considering loading empty railcars with Afghan fruits and vegetables, persimmons, beans, and other food products for delivery to Kazakhstan. Bauyrzhan Urynbasarov, managing director of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), the country's national railway company, proposed two options for reverse loading empty containers and railcars. The first is a circular train route: container trains traveling from China through Kazakhstan to Afghanistan are loaded with Afghan goods bound for China. From there, they pass through the port of Karachi in Pakistan before returning to China. In the second route, trains reach Afghanistan, where they are reloaded and loaded with Afghan goods, then return to Kazakhstan, where, after unloading, they are packed with Kazakh goods and go to China. Zhumangarin proposed that the Afghan side use the capacities of the Kazakh terminal in the Chinese dry port in Xi'an, the Kazakh-Chinese logistics terminal in the port of Lianyungang, and the terminal currently under construction in the dry port of Urumqi in China’s Xinjiang. The parties also agreed to organize an interregional Kazakh-Afghan forum, where the provinces of Afghanistan and the regions of Kazakhstan could discuss cooperation projects. According to Kazakh statistics, trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Afghanistan amounted to $330.7 million from January to August 2024. Exports from Kazakhstan to Afghanistan totaled $316.5 million, including flour, sunflower oil, natural gas, and fertilizers. Afghanistan's exports reached $14.1 million, mainly mineral water, fruits, juices, and aluminum products. The Afghan delegation arrived in Almaty on October 20 to participate in an exhibition of Afghan food and industrial products.
