Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Kazakhstan is strengthening the potential of the regional section of the China-Europe-China transcontinental railway route. This was announced by the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Xinhua News Agency reported.

“Until 2025, the second track will be built and the Dostyk-Moiynty railway section will be fully electrified. As a result, the throughput of this direction will increase fivefold. The amount of investments in the project will amount to US$2.2 billion,” Tokayev at a consultative meeting of the heads of state of Central Asia in Turkmenistan.

He added that the existing Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway also provides great opportunities. This is the shortest route to the Gulf countries.

According to the President, the annually growing volumes of cargo transportation in the region dictate the need to develop the Southern Corridor of the Trans-Asian Railway. For example, the launch of the Darbaza-Maktaaral railway line will reduce the time of cargo transportation by 1.5 times. The project for the construction of the Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway, which opens access to the markets of South Asia, is also considered promising.

 “The port capacities of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have a huge potential. In general, over the past three years, the container traffic along the trans-Caspian routes has grown more than 13 times. On the basis of the port of Aktau, Kazakhstan plans to create a container hub with the involvement of the world’s leading operators. We are open for mutually beneficial cooperation in the development of transport communications within the region”, - concluded Tokayev.

Rail freight traffic between Kazakhstan and China in January - July increased by 5 percent and amounted to 12.7 million tons. Oralkhan Kulakov, Acting Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Kazakhstan Railways Company, announced this on Friday.

“I would like to note the growth in the volume of container transit trains for 7 months of this year by 1550 trains, or 40 percent. At the same time, the average route speed in the direction of China-Europe was 1134 km per day,” Kulakov said during an online conference.

He added that one of the prerequisites for increasing traffic between China and Kazakhstan is the containerization of goods. At the moment, at the government level, with the participation of representatives of the business community, the company and other stakeholders, a Roadmap for containerization of goods is being developed.

According to the results of seven months of 2021, over 147 million tons of cargo were loaded through the Kazakh railway network, which is 4.4 million tons more than in the previous year. Over 95.3 million tons were transported within the republic, 52.1 million tons - for export.