ASTANA, Kazakhstan, January 31. Kazakhstan has invited the port of Rotterdam to take an active part in the development of the country’s Caspian ports, said Marat Karabayev, Minister of Transport of Kazakhstan, Trend reports.
He made the remark during a meeting with the vice president of the port, Matthijs van Doorn.
Marat Karabayev made a presentation on the attractiveness of investment in the country. According to him, currently, the ministry has formed a pool that consists of 36 projects totaling about $23 billion, resulting in the creation of more than 10,000 jobs in the fields of railway and maritime transport.
"Today, work is underway to transform our ports. We are aimed at turning Kazakh ports into one of the leading hubs of the Caspian Sea, strengthening the maritime fleet, and creating a container hub in the port of Aktau. One of the conditions is to attract cargo traffic, which will be implemented on a "ship-or-pay" basis," the minister said.
As Karabayev noted, the development of Kazakh ports will lead to an expansion of the capacity of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, which has enormous potential to be one of the key transit corridors in the Eurasian space.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has begun developing a number of important projects for the development of maritime infrastructure in 2023 as a container hub will be built, berths will be rebuilt, and transshipment equipment will be updated in the port of Aktau.
At the same time, a grain terminal was opened in Kuryk's port in collaboration with the Emirati company Abu Dhabi Ports.
Furthermore, dredging work in the waters of the ports of Aktau and Kuryk is scheduled for 2024–2025 to increase maritime navigation safety.
In all, the realization of all of the following projects will enhance Kazakhstan's seaports' throughput capacity by 10 million tons, including container capacity of up to 300,000 TEUs per year.