Central Asian countries seek growth with BRI logistics base

Transport option offers lower costs, more convenience to landlocked areas

NANJING — Fully loaded with containers of wheat from Kazakhstan, a roaring China-Europe freight train enters an international logistics base in Lianyungang, a coastal city in East China's Jiangsu province.

Kazakhstan is one of the world's top wheat producers and has traditionally exported some of its wheat via sea routes. As a landlocked country, it found this process both time-consuming and expensive. However, the establishment of the China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) logistics cooperation base has provided a more convenient and economical option.

In 2013, China proposed building an "economic belt along the Silk Road" in Kazakhstan, which, combined with the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road proposal, eventually became the Belt and Road Initiative.

The logistics cooperation base, launched in 2014, is the first project under the BRI. Acting as a dry port in the Horgos-Eastern Gate special economic zone and the Western China-Western Europe international transport corridor, it has become an important platform for products from Central Asian countries to reach seaports.

In February 2017, the first batch of wheat produced in Kazakhstan stopped over in Lianyungang and was then sent to Southeast Asia, marking the official implementation of Lianyungang as the only departure port for Kazakhstan's grain transit in China, said Zuo Xuemei, general manager of the Lianyungang China-Kazakhstan International Logistics Co Ltd, in an interview.

China-Europe freight trains slash transit times of Kazakh wheat and are also cost-effective, said Zuo, adding that over 50,000 metric tons of wheat from Kazakhstan have been transported from the base so far.

The base has also provided some Kazakhs with job opportunities. Zharkyn Magzhan, an international graduate student from a Chinese university, became a translator there last year, and he is fond of his new life.

"I have never seen such a big port before and I have never been close to the sea for a long time," said Magzhan. At the beginning of this year, he went back to Kazakhstan and saw many China-made vehicles and newly-added infrastructure built with help from Chinese companies.

"My elder brother also works for a Chinese enterprise in our hometown. The BRI not only injects impetus into cooperation between Central Asian countries and China, but also brings more opportunities for young people to work overseas to pursue better careers," said Magzhan.

"I believe that projects like the China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) logistics cooperation base will mushroom in the future and the prospects for cooperation between China and Central Asian countries are rosy," he said.

In the past 10 years, more and more clients from Central Asian countries have been seeking opportunities in Lianyungang, said Xiao Faliang, general manager of the multimodal transport division of Sinotrans Landbridge Transportation Co Ltd, a company engaged in international freight transport.

"It used to take over 20 days for goods to travel from Lianyungang to Alma Ata, the largest city in Kazakhstan, but now it only takes about a week," said Xiao, attributing the shorter time to the improved operating efficiency of China-Europe freight trains, which is also a result of the BRI.

Because of the new choice provided by the China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) logistics cooperation base, Barbican Logistics LLC in Uzbekistan has been a partner of the company Xiao works with for many years.

"The logistics cooperation base offers a platform for Uzbekistan, a landlocked Central Asian country, to trade with more countries and regions, as goods can now be transported to Lianyungang first and then to Southeast Asian countries," said Mirkhamidov Mirkomil, general director of Barbican Logistics LLC.

The China-Kazakhstan (Lianyungang) logistics cooperation base has not only promoted mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Kazakhstan, but provided new opportunities to other inland Belt and Road countries, said Zhang Wei, an expert with China Academy of Railway Sciences Corp Ltd.

The base can also promote the economic opening up of Lianyungang, developing it into a highland for the high-quality development of China-Europe freight trains, she said.

Xinhua