During his government visit to Kazakhstan, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, together with the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, visited the port of Kuryk and became familiar with new transport and logistics projects as part of the development of the Middle Corridor.

Kuryk port is located on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, south of the Aktau Commercial Seaport. Today its production capacity is 6 million tons of cargo per year: Kazakhstan export and transit goods pass through the ferry complex. The port is currently working to expand its infrastructure and increase its transshipment capacity.

The delegation took a walking tour of Kuryk and a sightseeing tour on one of the ferries. In addition, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Alikhan Smailov were presented perspective investment projects, including the project of multifunctional sea terminal "Sarzha", and reports on the current work of the port were presented.

It was noted that today more than 80% of goods from China and Central Asia to Europe are transported through Kazakhstan. Against this background, the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, also known as the Middle Corridor is playing an increasingly important role on the continental trade map - the shortest route for shipments from Central and East Asia to Europe. Last year, transshipment of cargo through it doubled, making about 1.7 million tons. For 5 months of this year the cargo flow has grown on 64 %, having exceeded 1 million tons.

Kazakhstan is interested in increasing cargo traffic volumes up to 10 million tonnes along the route in the medium term and is ready to make its port capacities available to meet the growing demands of its German and European partners. Today the throughput capacity of the ports of Aktau and Kuryk exceeds 20 million tons. At the same time, the Government is working on building external logistics terminals and digitalization of the routes.

In turn, the German partners express their interest in the implementation of promising transport and logistics projects.

#Alikhan Smailov #The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan #International Cooperation #Regions #TITR