Photo courtesy of logisticsservices.ru
Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport is planning to establish a new transit corridor between China and Russia via the Irtysh River, with transport ministers from the three nations set to hold negotiations next May. This announcement was made by Kazakhstan’s Minister of Transport, Marat Karabayev, as reported by Vlast.kz.
“The project will create a new multimodal transit corridor between China and Russia through Kazakhstan, connecting to the Northern Seas via the Irtysh and subsequently through the Ob River,” Karabayev stated during a government session in the Mazhilis, the lower house of parliament.
The initiative includes plans to open a fourth railway checkpoint on the Chinese border, construct a 120-kilometer railway extension to the town of Tygyl in East Kazakhstan, and build a river port there. The projected freight capacity for the route is 2.6 million tons annually.
The Irtysh River spans 4,000 kilometers, half of which lies within Russian territory. Last year, the three countries expressed intentions to enhance the use of the river for cargo transportation. Preliminary discussions about the route were held last autumn. The proposed route would run along the Irtysh to a logistics center in Kazakhstan and then proceed by rail into China.
