ASTANA, Kazakhstan, April 25. Kazakhstan launched a new multimodal export route through Afghanistan on April 25, said Managing Director of Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ, national company) Bauyrzhan Urynbasarov, Trend reports.
He made the remark during the meeting of the Deputy Prime Ministers of Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, Serik Zhumangarin and Abdul Ghani Baradar.
"Today, a pilot project was launched to organize a new multimodal export route from Kazakhstan through Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and then by sea to the port of Jebel Ali in the UAE," he said.
According to him, the new route was organized with the participation of KTZ Express. The exporter is Kazakh Bio Synergy Co., and the cargo delivery partner is the Pakistani National Logistics Cell (NLC).
"Now cargo loading has begun in the Pavlodar region. This is an aluminosilicate hollow microsphere. In Almaty, the cargo will be reloaded into containers and transferred to the vehicles of the Pakistani partner. And then by road – through Uzbekistan and Afghanistan – to the port of Karachi in Pakistan. From there, two containers will travel by sea to the port of Jebel Ali in the UAE," he said.
As Urynbasarov noted, the expected delivery time for goods is about 20–25 days. With the successful implementation of the pilot project, active development in this direction and the attraction of significant volumes of cargo traffic along the new route are expected.
To date, 13 international transport corridors have been formed and are in operation in Kazakhstan, including 5 railways and 8 roads.
Furthermore, about $30 billion has been invested in the transport and logistics infrastructure of Kazakhstan over the past 10 years.
Moreover, in the next five years, at least 40 billion euros will be needed to implement major infrastructure projects in the field of transportation in Kazakhstan.