Kazakhstan’s sea and coastal cargo and baggage transportation volume reached 1.6 million tons, marking a 2.1-fold increase compared to the same period in 2023, as per a media report on Aug. 19.
This year’s transportation volume surpassed the annual figures recorded over the past five years. Previously, higher figures were recorded only before 2014. The cargo turnover of sea and coastal transport also rose, doubling to 966 million ton-kilometers during January-July, the highest since 2020.
This growth in sea and coastal cargo transportation was ensured, among other things, by the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), connecting China to Europe via rail and sea transport. The ports of Kuryk and Aktau play a crucial role in this route. By 2025, a new container hub in the Aktau seaport will handle up to 300,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has set a goal to increase cargo traffic along the TITR to 500,000 TEU per year by 2030, up from 33,600 TEU in 2022.
For comparison, according to EnergyProm, the Port of Shanghai in China was recognized as the busiest in the world in 2023, handling 49 million TEU of cargo. The Port of Singapore followed it with 39 million TEU. Chinese ports also secured the third, fourth, and fifth spots: Ningbo-Zhoushan (35.3 million TEU), Shenzhen (26.9 million TEU), and Qingdao (26.4 million TEU). South Korea’s Port of Busan ranked sixth with 22.8 million TEU, while the only non-Asian port in the top ten, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, ranked tenth with 13.4 million TEU.