Amid the recent geopolitical tensions, Kazakhstan has emerged as a vital artery to connect Asia and Europe. Given its strategic location, the country plays a pivotal role, as it can be crossed to reach Europe both via Poland and the Black Sea. The country’s importance is reflected in the volumes moved from China to Europe, which are increasingly being shipped via its railways.
Freight trains enter Kazakhstan from China through two main rail border crossings: Dostyk and Altynkol. From here, the convoys can either run northwest towards Russia and Belarus up until the Małaszewicze terminal in Poland, the main gateway for Asia-Europe rail freight.
However, they can also be sent southwest to the Kazakh ports of Aktau and Kuryk on the Caspian Sea, along the so-called Middle Corridor. Goods are then moved by ship to Baku, in Azerbaijan and continue their rail journey to Georgia. Once in this country, goods can be continued to be moved by rail through Türkiye or again by ship across the Black Sea and enter Europe via Romania, Bulgaria or Ukraine.
Steady growth since 2017
Since 2017, both routes have experienced significant growth in rail freight traffic, both in terms of TEUs and total tonnes moved. A first glance at the numbers already shows how the two routes have been used for different transport needs. The route to Małaszewicze has seen a much higher number of TEUs but proportionally lower figures for the total tonnes, compared to the Middle Corridor route.
For the China-Kazakhstan-Poland connection, TEUs handled have more than doubled over the past 7 years. From 175,102 in 2017 to 380,434, with the highest spikes during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially 2021. With the still ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine of 2022, however, TEUs have declined and are still below 2020 levels. Total tonnes moved between the China-Kazakh border crossings and Małaszewicze followed a similar trend, more than tripling over the time span analysed.
The Middle Corridor, on the other hand, deals with much fewer TEUs but a higher weight load than the route to Poland. Still, the pace of growth along this line is just as impressive. Between 2017 and 2024, TEUs have grown more than sixfold (despite remaining much lower than its counterpart), while total tonnes have risen more than two and a half times, for a total of more than 3,3 million last year.
Another index of the Middle Corridor’s growth is the number of container block trains, which went from 11 in 2023 to 358 last year and expectations to go over 400 trains in 2025. Surprise, surprise, Kazakhstan is partly behind this too. One of the main drivers behind the increase of container traffic along this route is the Xi’an Dry Port, located in the heart of China and co-managed by Kazakhstan.
More trains = more bottlenecks
Kazakhstan is actively pursuing a role as a key transit country for Asia-Europe trade flows, and therefore wants to eliminate bottlenecks that hinder freight flows. After all, infrastructure capacity constraints are the primary limitation along the Middle Corridor. In 2024 and 2025, Kazakh border crossing points (BCPs), especially Dostyk and Altynkol, struggled with increased traffic. For instance, China-Europe traffic through Altynkol surged by 28.3% in Q1 2025, partly due to the Red Sea crisis diverting more freight to rail.
This led to chaotic situations, with shipments stuck for up to a month. Kazakhstan attempted to alleviate pressure by moving freight from Dostyk to Altynkol, but Altynkol also faced backlogs. Ultimately, Kazakhstan resorted to banning certain wagon types at BCPs to ease the situation.
In other words, more trains means more congestion. As a result, the average time to clear a border crossing point has gone up substantially in recent years. Since 2018, there has been a clear trend of Kazakh BCPs operating slower and slower. At the same time, the cost of crossing BCPs has remained largely unchanged.
Kazakhstan is now working to future-proof itself: it is working on a third border crossing, it plans to modernise the Altynkol border crossing and has doubled the maximum allowed amount of passing trains at Dostyk (from 14 to 28) and Altynkol (from 8 to 15).
Slower and more expensive
The success of the Middle Corridor, and of Kazakhstan as a transit country, also depends on its ability to remain competitive and offer speed. Here too, there are obstacles to be overcome.
The average cost to move 20 tonnes of freight via rail over a distance of 500 kilometres in Kazakhstan has also increased since 2019. Despite reaching a new peak in 2023 (more recent data is not available), it had not yet surpassed all-time peak year 2014. Between 2011 and 2014, the cost of rail freight in Kazakhstan skyrocketed. According to monitoring organisation CAREC, that was a result of a number of tariff increases.
In 2025, we saw another such increase. Infrastructure manager KTZ slapped an additional 35% on freight tariffs in April. As a result, say private Kazakh companies, the tariffs doubled between 2021 and 2024.
With more congestion and lower average speeds, those added costs are not providing a better quality of service. Perhaps the sector will just need to wait for key improvements in BCPs, port terminals and along vital railways to complete.