Aiming to establish itself as a key player in Middle Corridor trade, Kazakhstan’s national railway company, KTZ, is branching out, moving forward with plans to create of a maritime fleet and a cargo airline.
The company has signed contracts for the construction of six multi-purpose vessels, four to be built by China’s Jiangsu Haizhongzhou Shipping Industry Co., Ltd, and the other two by Azerbaijan’s Baku Shipyard, according to KTZ’s press service.
The vessels are expected to each be capable of ferrying up to 537 twenty-foot-equivalent (TEU) units across the Caspian or Black seas. “This initiative will ensure the efficient integration of the maritime leg into the unified logistics chain” of the Middle Corridor, according to the KTZ statement.
Meanwhile, the paperwork for registering a Kazakh Railways air cargo entity was submitted last fall by the company’s KTZ Express subsidiary, and plans call for the entity to have a fleet of 10 cargo jets.
Late last year, Kazakh officials hoped the first cargo flight would occur in early 2026, but so far the service is not operational.President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has set a goal for Kazakhstan to become a major hub for air cargo heading to and from Europe and Asia.
More about Kazakhstan A signing ceremony for an investment agreement covering the construction of a grain deep-processing plant in the Akmola region took place in Astana between the government of Kazakhstan and Asia Altyn Dan LLP, a company owned by a consortium of Chinese entities.
The reported price tag of the facility is 300 billion Kazakh tenge (about $640 million).During the September-March period of 2025-26, Kazakhstan exported a record-breaking volume of feed meal to China: just under 2.2 million tons, which represents a more than two-fold increase compared to the same period during previous marketing year, according to Eldala.kz.
Kazakhstan’s parliament has ratified an agreement between the governments of Kazakhstan and China on the promotion and mutual protection of investments.The agreement was signed last June, according to Zakon.kz.
The agreement updates a 1992 pact to account for the significant increase in cross-border investments.The Kazakh startup ApartX reportedly has signed a white-label partnership deal with a Chinese manufacturer of smart access systems to facilitate the latter’s entry into the German market.
The agreement highlights growing cooperation between China and Kazakhstan in the startup sphere, according to Forbes.kz.The Chinese partner supplies smart locks and the logistics network, while ApartX provides software ensuring data protection and digital document management that meets German standards.
The ApartX software will enable integration with local payment systems.The partnership allows the Chinese company to fulfill the regulatory requirements to enter the European market, according to Forbes.kz, which did not identify the Chinese partner.
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan sent another high-ranking delegation to China that included the minister of energy and the president’s special representative for special assignments.However, the only reported tangible result was an agreement for a delegation from the PRC’s province of Zhejiang, including representatives of Alibaba and Geely, to visit Kyrgyzstan.
Uzbekistan A high-ranking Uzbek delegation, led by Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov, visited Hong Kong for a Chinese-Uzbek business forum that yielded 15 signed agreements.Details about the agreement are scarce, but they included agricultural projects worth over $550 million and a 150 MW energy storage system in the Samarkand region, according to UzDaily.uz.
Representatives of the Xinjiang Branch of the Chinese Academy of Civil Engineering and Uzbekistan’s Academy of Sciences have approved a plan to create a joint Center for the Integration of Science, Trade, and Investment.
Uzbekistan Airways will launch regular flights to the Chinese coastal city of Guangzhou staring May 27, marking the airline’s sixth destination in China, reports UzDaily.Turkmenistan Representatives of Chinese telecommunication giants, including Huawei, ZTE and China Information and Communication Technologies Group Corp, held talks in Ashgabat with Turkmen government officials, reports Turkmen Portal.
Hajymyrat Hudaygulyev, the Turkmen Minister of Communications, outlined a government plan to develop artificial intelligence capabilities, calling it a “strategic priority” and a “a key tool for improving the efficiency of public administration.” The discussions explored the possibilities of creating AI research centers and “smart cities,” according to Turkmen Portal.
Seven Chinese cotton seed varieties are being tested in 650 hectares of land in Turkmenistan using Xinjiang agricultural technology, according to Turkmen Portal.A recently published report by a coalition of watchdog organizations documented widespread labor abuses and inefficient practices in the country’s cotton sector.