Windswept Kazakh rail hub at the heart of China-Europe trade

Operating a huge cargo lifter, Zhandos Nurmagambetov was stacking containers onto a train before it headed across the steppe of Kazakhstan on a new railway route vital for China-Europe trade.

Central Asia is in the midst of a logistics boom, as Beijing invests heavily in the New Silk Road -- a vast overland transport network linking China to Europe that can help bypass Russia and shorten freight routes.

On Kazakhstan's border with China, the once-sleepy small town of Dostyk, whose name translates as "friendship", has become a surprisingly vital hub in global trade.

"We receive and ship goods mainly from Europe, Asia and Russia," Nurmagambetov told AFP, as he moved 20-tonne containers using the industrial forklift.

"A 39-car train is about 900 metres (0.6 miles) long. We carry out this operation in 40 minutes," Nurmagambetov told AFP as wind swept through the cargo terminal.

On the side of the metal boxes, the names of major Chinese logistics hubs -- Xi'an and Zhengzhou -- reveal the thousands of kilometres the goods have already travelled. Europe is another 4,000-plus kilometres away.

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Located in the Dzungarian gate, a mountain pass that connects Kazakhstan to China's Xinjiang region, Dostyk is near the "continental pole of inaccessibility" -- the place on Earth furthest from the ocean, which is around 2,500 kilometres away.

Despite its geographic isolation, strong winds and frequent dust storms, Dostyk is the largest freight station in the country and a "hub for export and import trade," according to Zhanat Utegulov of Kazakhstan Railways.

Bypassing Russia

Container trains going through Dostyk and Alashankou, the Chinese city on the other side of the border, have two options to reach Europe: the traditional route via Russia, or the new Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) through Central Asia.

Europe is backing the second, which bypasses Russia and has seen "increased interest since the Russian invasion of Ukraine", the World Bank said in a report.

For landlocked Kazakhstan, an enormous country spanning almost 3,000 kilometres from east to west, the new route presents a huge economic opportunity.

Some 85 percent of all rail cargo between China and Europe passes through Kazakhstan, and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has said he wants the country to be "a golden bridge between China and Europe".

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The initiative demonstrates the strategic importance of Central Asia, where Europe and the United States also compete for influence.

Development of the route, which can cut delivery times and also avoids the Suez Canal, has been rapid.

Though Kazakhstan and China share a 1,800-kilometre border, the first container trains to Europe only launched in 2013, said railway official Utegulov.

Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and imposition of Western sanctions were a major boost for the TITR.

Trade volume jumped more than six-fold between 2021 and 2024, according to official Kazakh data.

At Dostyk, the recent opening of a double track could increase freight loads five-fold -- from 12 to 60 daily train pairs with the Chinese side, Kazakhstan says.

On a platform currently under construction, a giant steel plate is set to bear the slogan "One Belt, One Road", China's official name for the New Silk Road, a favoured initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

'Volume is increasing'

At the previously neglected outpost of Dostyk, westward-bound cargo is hoisted onto the wider-track gauges used across the former Soviet Union.

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"Trains arrive from China to Europe. We transfer them onto the wider track, put them on the rails and send them on, the same for trains arriving from Europe," Erlan Kazhibekov, a railway dispatcher, told AFP.

In front of him stood a huge screen where red, yellow and green traffic lights coordinate the flow of trains amid increasing volumes.

Serik Naymanchalov, a driver who remembers the quiet railway of the 1990s and now makes frequent journeys to China, hailed the progress.

"Upon arrival in Alashankou, we hand over the cargo documents. We uncouple the locomotive and leave the cargo. We are then given other cars to continue our journey (back) to Kazakhstan," he said.

Amid the logistics boom, Tokayev has warned Kazakh citizens and businesses against "resting on their laurels".

There is little sign of that along the route. As well as the expansion of Dostyk, an entirely new railway border crossing to the north is set to open in 2027.

Source: AFP