Once the new railway from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan is done, the transit of cargo toward the south will be much faster, said Kairbek Uskenbayev, minister of industry and infrastructural development of Kazakhstan.
The new railway is going to connect Darbaza and Maktaaral. The railway station Darbaza, Kazakhstan is located between Arys and Saryagash (both of which are in the Turkestan region of Kazakhstan). Kazakhstan exporters are used to sending their goods such as wheat and flour via Saryagash, the railway station right on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and near the Uzbek capital city of Tashkent. However, exporters have always been unhappy with the delays they have faced here while their goods cross the border. The new project is going to decrease the time of transit for Kazakhstani goods that are headed to Central Asian states, according to the Kazakh minister.
As the ministry reported, the new railway is going to be about 106 kilometers in length. This project will require more than $347 million and must be implemented over 2024-2025. Once the project is implemented, exporters from Kazakhstan will be able to send their shipments to the city of Jizzakh, Uzbekistan via Kazakhstan’s station of Maktaaral and the railway station of Irdjarskaya on the Uzbek side. This will also require a reconstruction of 89 kilometers of railway, including a 12-kilometers section in Kazakhstan’s territory. A business case for the project must be developed by the end of the current year.
