Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

The freight traffic en route Western Europe - Western China through Kazakhstan has significantly increased and reached 600,000 tons.

This was stated by Kazakh Vice Minister for Investment and Development Roman Sklyar at a press conference following the government meeting, Trend reported.

He noted that for comparison, in 2009, 160,000 tons of cargo was transited through Kazakhstan via this route, the press service of the ministry reported.

In general, the turnover of this transit corridor in 2009 stood at the level of 13 million tons.

These figures will reach 33 million tons of cargo per year in 2020, according to the ministry's forecasts.

The Vice Minister added that the WE-WC international transit corridor is the shortest route for transporting goods from China to Kazakhstan, the countries of Central Asia, the western regions of Russia and Europe.

The delivery of cargo from the central provinces of China to St. Petersburg by road takes no more than 10 days, whereas by sea the goods pass the same way for 45 days.

"The length of the transit corridor in our country is 2,787 kilometers. In the current year, we have fully completed all necessary work on this corridor," he said.

The countries that participated in the creation of this corridor, in addition to strengthening the transit potential, also received an internal effect in the sphere of regional development.

For example, the corridor covers 200 settlements with a total of 5.5 million people in Kazakhstan. A significant impetus is expected in the development of small and medium-sized businesses, the service industry, tourism and other sectors of the economy.

The WE-WC Transport Corridor is also one of Kazakhstan’s major contributions to China’s Belt & Road initiative, which aims to increase infrastructural, economic, and political connectivity between more than 65 countries across Eurasia, covering half the population, 40 percent of the GDP, and 75 percent of the known energy resources in the world.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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