Kazakhstan inaugurates new multimodal route within Middle Corridor
KTZ Express, the logistics subsidiary of Kazakhstan Railways, has arranged a new route for delivering containers. It is based on the Middle Corridor and includes two legs, rail and sea. The multimodal link opens up a new option for the land-locked Central Asian countries to reliably ship their freight even to Africa.
In a partnership with CMA CGM, KTZ Express organized the first delivery of the containers from Egypt to Kazakhstan. Six 40-foot boxes with construction materials were transported from the Egyptian port of Alexandria to the Kostanay station in northern Kazakhstan via the Georgian port of Poti. The travel time took 25 days.
New opportunity
“This landmark development opened up wide opportunities for increasing freight traffic on the international corridor between the Eurasian continent and Africa,” KTZ Express noted. Earlier, all shipments between North Africa and Central Asia were running via the Russian ports on the Black Sea. To launch the new route, KTZ Express offered a competitive price and quality service for the customers. Currently, the Kazakh company is negotiating with the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt to dispatch more containers via the new route and cargo turnover between the countries. Moreover, Egypt could be a transit hub for transporting freight from Central Asia to other African states.