ASTANA, Kazakhstan, October 9. The volume of cargo transportation along the Kazakhstan railway network (KTZ, national company) increased to 190.7 million tons from January through September 2023, which is 700,000 tons more than in the same period last year, Trend reports.
During the reporting period, more than 77.6 million tons of coal were transported, including 54.3 million tons to Kazakhstanis, and 23.3 million tons for export.
Following the results of 9 months, grain transportation increased by 41.2 percent, to 8.5 million tons. Exports increased by 54 percent, to 7 million tons. The volume of domestic transportation amounted to 1.5 million tons, which is 1.5 percent higher than the same period in 2022.
Transportation of chemical fertilizers also increased by 6 percent, to 3.1 million tons, iron ore by 3.1 percent, to 15.3 million tons, loads of construction materials by 3.8 percent, to 12.7 million tons.
At the end of 9 months of 2023, operational cargo turnover increased by 7.5 percent compared to the same period last year and amounted to 201 billion t-km.
Kazakhstan wants to increase the transit of goods through its territory to 35 million tons by 2023. The figure is reflected in the Concept for the Development of Transport and Logistics Potential of Kazakhstan.
Due to the global redistribution of cargo traffic, the load on the infrastructure of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR or Middle Corridor) and the North-South corridor (on the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran route) has increased, which in turn made it possible to identify bottlenecks. Therefore, work is now underway to develop alternative transport corridors.