ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 24. Kazakhstan will carry out dredging work in the waters of the port of Kuryk in 2024, and similar work is planned in Aktau in 2025, said the Minister of Transport of Kazakhstan Marat Karabayev, Trend reports.
He made the remark during an expanded board meeting at the Ministry of Transport, chaired by the First Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Roman Sklyar.
"Also, in order to develop the maritime transport industry, together with the Lianyungang Port companies, construction of a container hub will begin in the seaport of Aktau, which will increase the capacity of container transportation to 300,000 twenty-foot equivalent. As part of increasing capacity, it is planned to modernize the berth infrastructure of the Aktau port and build three new terminals in Kuryk," the minister said.
As Karabayev noted, the total investment for the development of the Aktau and Kuryk terminals will be about $618 million. These measures will be taken into account in the Comprehensive Plan for the Development of Maritime Infrastructure until 2030.
"As part of the development of the merchant fleet, this year we are studying the possibility of building our own shipbuilding plant on the Caspian coast. In general, there is a need for the construction of 10 new ships, including 3 tankers, 3 dry cargo ships, and 4 universal ferries," the minister added.
Meanwhile, the volume of cargo transportation through the seaports of Kazakhstan amounted to 7.2 million tons in 2023, which is 11 percent more than in 2022.
The structure of cargo is dominated by the export transportation of Kazakh companies in the direction of European countries.