Kazakhstan, China agree on additional container traffic through Middle Corridor

Kazakhstan’s KTZ Express JSC and China’s Yuxinou have signed an agreement on the movement of 200 container trains with a total carrying capacity of more than 20,000 TEU through the territory of Kazakhstan, including along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (Middle Corridor), Report informs referring to the national railway operator Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ).

On February 29 in Chongqing, KTZ Deputy General Director for Logistics Erlan Koishibaev met with the management of the seaport of the Chongqing municipality and top managers of Yuxinou (Chongqing) Logistics Co., Ltd.

Yuxinou and KTZ organized a joint Middle Corridor rail service this year from Chongqing to Poti, a Black Sea port in Georgia, with an average travel time of up to 14 days.

Since the beginning of 2024, KTZ has reached agreements with transport companies from Xi’an, Jiangsu, Beijing, Zhengzhou, Chongqing to launch 3,500 transit container trains through Kazakhstan with a total carrying capacity of about 350,000 TEU.

The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route is an international transport corridor running through China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and further to Türkiye and European countries. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is part of the corridor. By 2025, the Middle Corridor’s capacity is expected to reach 10 million tons of cargo per year.

In 2023, 2.750 million tons of cargo were transported along the Middle Corridor, which is 64% more than in 2022.

Yuxinou is Chongqing’s largest transport company, operating more than 2,500 trains per year in western and eastern directions.