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Kazakhstan develops new railway corridor project

Business Materials 3 June 2015 15:47 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, June 3

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

Work on the Eurasian transcontinental corridor project, the establishment of which was recently initiated by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, is already underway, the Kazakh national company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (Kazakh Railways) told Trend.

Currently the governments of Kazakhstan and China are considering construction project of high-speed railway from boundary Khorgos to the Kazakh port of Aktau on the Caspian Sea, which will become a part of the Eurasian transcontinental corridor in the future, according to the company.

Currently, negotiations are underway to develop a feasibility study of the railway construction project and define its technical parameters, the company said.

"Creating high-speed narrow-gauge railway line from Khorgos to Aktau port will affect not only the traffic flows of Kazakhstan and China, but also the geography of transportation in the direction of Asia-Europe and will also contribute in general to the accelerated movement of goods between China, Kazakhstan and other countries of the Caspian region, as well as Turkey and European countries," the company said.

The company said that the multimodal transport route - Eurasian transcontinental corridor - is expected to link the transport systems of China and West European countries.

Moreover, the problem with the need to shift the wheelset from the narrow gauge to the broad gauge when crossing the state border with China will be removed from the agenda with the construction of the corridor. The width of the corridor's gauge will meet the West European standard and will be 1,435 millimeters.

It is expected that the corridor's track on Kazakhstan's borders will run towards Dostyk-Aktogay-Zhezkazgan-Beyneu-Aktau with the further access to Iran, South Caucasus and Turkey through the Caspian Sea and further to European countries.

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev made proposal to create the Eurasian transcontinental corridor at the 8th Astana economic forum, which was held in late May.

"I propose to create a new high-speed multi-modal transport route - the Eurasian transcontinental corridor," he said at the event. "It will run through the whole territory of our country, will allow the free transit of goods from Asia to Europe and back. This brings together and creates security, because security is beneficial to all of us."

Edited by CN

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Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova

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