Kazakhstan's role in Trans-Caspian corridor discussed in Beijing
The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route is an international transport corridor that runs through China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and further to European countries.
At the opening of the conference, Roman Sklyar told about the development of Kazakhstan's transit and transport potential over the years of Independence. He underlined that for 10 years in a row, the Republic of Kazakhstan has invested $30 billion in the transport development, constructed 2,500 km of railways, reconstructed 19,500 km of highways, increased the capacity of the Kazakh ports in the Caspian Sea up to 23.5 million tons, and reconstructed the runways of 15 airports.
At the panel session dedicated to the Advantages of the Trans-Caspian Transit Corridor in Transcontinental Transportation, Vice President of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy National Company Sanzhar Yelyubayev made a report.
"I would like to highlight that the work done by the countries participating within the Route has created the commercial advantage of the Trans-Caspian Route over the past few years. Firstly, the speed of transportation service by organized container trains from Eastern China to Turkey, which we offer to a client, is 13-14 days. Secondly, providing a competitive price for goods that are critical to the delivery time is about $6,000 for one 40ft container in a container train," he said.
According to him, the experts expect that by 2020 the growth of the trade turnover in the region of the Trans-Caspian route and Eastern and Southern Europe will have reached $922 billion, or over 300,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers.
Mr. Sklyar told Kazakh reporters about Kazakhstan's policy regarding diversification of transit routes.
"Our country has every opportunity to develop the major routes that run between China and Europe, between the countries of Central Asia and our country including access to the ports of the Black and Mediterranean seas. Therefore, we are now working in terms of various aspects, that is strengthening the existing infrastructure and improving the logistics competence of our administrations. Over the past three years, the annual growth of container flows between China and the EU countries has doubled. This requires serious efforts of our carriers and companies engaged in the development of our infrastructure," he said.
The conference was organized by the embassies of Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Turkey on the initiative of Azerbaijan and with the support of the Ministry of Commerce of China. It was aimed at promoting the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. Besides, the participants included Deputy Minister of Commerce of the People's Republic of China Wang Shouwen, Minister of Economy and Chairman of the Coordinating Committee for Transit Transport of Azerbaijan Shahin Mustafayev, Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia Giorgi Cherkezishvili, Deputy Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communications of Turkey Yüksel Coskunyürek, diplomats and representatives of business circles of the countries of the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor including Kazakhstan.