First container train starts from Finland through Kazakhstan to China

ASTANA. KAZINFORM The first regular container train is on its way from Finland to China in transit through Kazakhstan, the press service of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy National Company JSC says.

The train consisting of the carriages of KTZ Express, a subsidiary of the above national company, headed for Xi'an, China, from the Finnish railway station of Kouvola on November 10.

Representatives of the Kazakh Embassy in Finland, administrations of Kouvola and Xi'an cities, and the CEOs of transport and logistics companies took part in the ceremony of dispatching the train.

Transporting forest products, the train will cover over 8,500 km within 10 days. It will be transiting through Kazakhstan on more than 3,000 km and will transship in SEZ Khorgos Eastern Gates dry port at Altynkol border station.

"We are ready to develop the cooperation with Finland in terms of rail transportation. The organizing and dispatching the container train from Finland in transit through Kazakhstan to China and back is a landmark event for all the participating countries," said Almat Karimov, the Director of the Container Transportation Department of KTZ Express.

The successful implementation of the project resulted from the joint efforts of the multimodal logistics companies - KTZ Express JSC and Finland's Kouvola Innovation Oy. The projected potential load on the Kouvola-Buslovskaya-Altynkol-Xi'an route is over 1 million tons per year.

In December 2016, Kazakhstan, Finland, Russia, and China signed the agreement to open the Eastern Transport Corridor.