Kazakhstan started flour transportation to Afghanistan via Turkmenistan
Kazakhstan has opened a new route for the transportation of wheat flour to Afghanistan through Turkmenistan. On Wednesday, 18 July 2018, a train of more than fifty wagons with 3300-tons cargo left the northern Kazakh city of Kostanay for the station Serhetabad on Turkmen-Afghan border. The length of the route Kostanay-Bolashak-Serhetyaka-Bereket-Serhetabad is more than 3.5 thousand kilometers. The development of transportation on the new route will increase the transit potential of Kazakhstan, reduce turnover and accelerate the return of rolling stock in 2-2.5 times, commented acting Deputy Director General for operations of JSC "KTZ-Freight transport" Mukhtar Zhambulov. Earlier Kazakhstani mass media with reference to various sources in the agro-industrial complex, reported that exporters of grain products periodically face logistic difficulties, including those associated with a shortage of grain cars and covered wagons, preventing the timely fulfillment of contractual obligations to importers. Thereby, the scheme of shipment of flour and grain to Afghanistan by transit through the Turkmen rail lines, which provides for accelerated turnover of rolling stock, is quite beneficial to Kazakhstan agricultural producers and exporter companies. Kazakhstan exports its flour and grain to Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China. However, Afghanistan remains the main market where Kazakhstan's flour products are delivered through Uzbekistan. According to the statistics for the last five years, the sales of Kazakh flour in the Afghan direction is constantly growing. If in 2013, 421 thousand tons of flour were exported to Afghanistan, in 2017 this indicator increased by 3.7 times to 1.5 million tons, which amounted to about 65% of the total flour exports.
