Kazakhstan Freight Transport Increases By A Third, With More Improvements On The Way
The Ust-Kamemogorsk road – soon to become a major highway
Kazakhstan is embarking on major highway infrastructure developments
Kazakhstan’s road freight transportation has shown significant increases in both transit and import-export cargo, according to Marat Karabayev, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Transport. He stated that during 2022, 3.6 million tons were transported via road, an increase of 28.6% over 2021.
Connecting Kazakhstan East-West and to Russia
According to Karabayev, to ensure further growth, Kazakhstan plans to modernize border crossing points on the borders with neighboring countries, as well as improve the system for issuing permit forms for the transportation of goods. “It is also necessary to speed up the completion of the reconstruction and construction of major road corridors.
These highway developments include:
Astana – Almaty
This route connects Kazakhstan’s political capital with its main economic, financial and trade centre.
Atyrau – Astrakhan
This route connects Kazakhstan and Russia’s Caspian sea ports by a direct highway link.
Taldykorgan – Ust-Kamenogorsk
This is an east-west highway that traverses Kazakhstan from west to east and is part of the Middle Corridor between Europe and China.
In 2024–2026, it is also planned to reconstruct and upgrade an additional 4,700 km of main roads. These include, amongst others:
Aktobe – Ulgaysyn – Kyzylorda (east-west, part of the Middle Corridor between China and Europe),
Karaganda – Zhezkazga (linking two coal mining regions)
Atyrau – Dossor (connecting Dossor mining and manufacturing industries to Atyrau’s Caspian Port)
Astana – Kostanay (part of a route that will improve links between Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital city, via Kostanay, an important energy distribution hub, to Russia’s Chelyabinsk, the second largest city in the Urals)
Pavlodar – Russia border and Semei – Russian border (both providing important border crossings and routes to the trans-Siberian railway network at Omsk in Russia)
Atyrau-Uralsk (which links Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea port through to Samara in European Russia, an important Volga River city with transportation connections through to Moscow.
New projects will be started in stages as transitional projects are completed.
These new commitments to build and upgrade highways mainly through to Russia illustrate the extent of the impact upon neighbouring countries that Russia’s pivot towards the east is having. Kazakhstan is actively rebuilding and developing infrastructure to cater for these improved trade links and freight volumes as a result of Russia moving its supply chains away from Europe.
