Kazakhstan allocates $32.3 billion: 45% of Central Asia's transportation investments

Central Asia Column “Steppe Ahead,” by Thomas Baier

Kazakhstan accounts for $32.3 billion in current and planned transportation investments. That represents 45% of the total volume for Central Asia. The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) lists 114 projects in the region worth 71.7 billion U.S. dollars. According to EDB figures, 42.8 billion U.S. dollars of this amount is allocated to the Middle Corridor.

Kazakhstan accounts for 45% of the regional investment volume

The figures are from the EDB’s Transport Observatory, as of July 1, 2026. The bank published the data on July 23. Regional analyses followed on August 17 and 22. Across Eurasia, the EDB has recorded 402 projects worth 345 billion U.S. dollars. Central Asia accounts for 21% of this total. Russia accounts for 225 billion U.S. dollars.

Within Central Asia, road construction dominates, accounting for 56% of the volume. Rail follows with just under 30%. In terms of value, 62% of the projects are currently under construction. Another 29% are in the planning stage, and 9% are in the documentation phase. National budgets account for 62% of the total value. Chinese financiers are providing approximately US$7 billion, and projects with Chinese participation total over US$12 billion. The largest single project is the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway line, valued at $4.7 billion. The European Union has committed $10 billion to corridor infrastructure.

In a Eurasian comparison, the Middle Corridor thus ranks third. According to the EDB, the Northern Eurasian Corridor totals 84.8 billion U.S. dollars. The North-South Corridor (INSTC) follows with 52.8 billion U.S. dollars. Rail accounts for approximately $150 billion across Eurasia, representing 42.8% of all funding. Eight of the ten largest individual projects are located in Russia.

Last year, 70 new projects worth 74 billion U.S. dollars were added. Projects totaling approximately 10 billion U.S. dollars were completed, of which about 6 billion U.S. dollars were in Central Asia. “We are witnessing the transition from isolated transportation projects to the formation of an integrated Eurasian transportation network,” said Yevgeny Vinokurov, Deputy Chairman of the EDB’s Board of Directors.

New rail line shortens the Middle Corridor by 149 kilometers

Kazakhstan is currently building the Moyynty-Kyzylzhar line. It is 323 kilometers long. As of July 2026, 202.5 kilometers of track had been laid, with completion scheduled for the end of 2026. This was reported by the regional business newspaper Times of Central Asia. The line shortens the Middle Corridor by 149 kilometers.

The travel time from Dostyk to Aktau is expected to drop from about 72 to 68 hours by 2031. On the new section itself, it will drop from eight to six hours. The World Bank expects capacity to double from 14 to 28 freight train pairs per day. In February 2026, the World Bank approved a guarantee of $846 million. This will enable Kazakhstan to mobilize $1.41 billion in commercial bank loans.

Interest from international lenders remains strong. “International financial institutions remain interested in further investments,” Jasurbek Choriew, Secretary-General of the TRACECA Permanent Secretariat, told the Azerbaijani news agency Trend.

The bottleneck is on the Caspian Sea

Land infrastructure is growing faster than maritime capacity. The Kazakh shipping company Kazmortransflot transported approximately 59,400 standard containers (TEU) in 2025. A year earlier, the figure was 51,400 TEU, an increase of 15%. In May 2026, traffic between Aktau and Azerbaijan reached a monthly record of 7,451 TEU. New rail tracks are of little use if there are not enough ferries.

Shippers can hardly plan for the situation. Average wait times at the ports and metrics on schedule adherence remain largely unpublished. This makes it impossible to reliably estimate the actual door-to-door transit time. Yet it is precisely this predictability that will determine whether European and Chinese shippers will permanently switch from sea to rail.

Oil illustrates just how expensive a single route can become. More than 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports flow through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s pipeline. When the Black Sea terminal went offline in July, production plummeted. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan alternative route transported only 155,000 metric tons in July, according to the English-language newspaper *The Astana Times*, citing official data. In container traffic as well, the region is dependent on a single bottleneck: the Caspian Sea.

A second risk is fiscal. With 62% of the project’s value coming from government budgets, expansion depends on revenue from natural resources. Kazakhstan’s oil production fell by 8.9% to 53.2 million metric tons from January through July 2026. Export revenues held steady thanks to prices and strong June shipments; exports rose by 8.6% to $40.3 billion in the first half of the year. If the oil price falls, the investment plan will come under pressure. Until then, Kazakhstan remains the bellwether: Nearly half of all transportation-related investment in Central Asia flows into the country.

Source: Eurasian Development Bank, Trend, AnewZ, The Times of Central Asia, The Astana Times (all in English)