Turkmenistan has completed its link in an international freight railway that promises to enhance economic security by opening the region’s markets to the Middle East.
The Turkmen government announced the completion of its more than 600-kilometer stretch of the project in July 2014. Just two months earlier, Kazakhstan had completed its 146-kilometer portion of the railway to reach Turkmenistan’s northern border.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev celebrated the event with a ceremonial tightening of bolts in May 2014 to complete the rail connection between the two countries.
The north-south corridor, which allowed the countries to avoid a longer route through Uzbekistan, follows the Zhanaozen-Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek route east of the Caspian Sea. Construction began in 2009.
Initial trade volume aboard the railway is estimated at 3 million to 5 million tons per year — mostly grain and petroleum — but that amount is eventually expected to surpass 10 million tons.
The railway is part of an effort to boost security through the development of a network of Central Asian and South Asian trade corridors that in some cases mimics routes affiliated with the ancient Silk Road.
The Asian Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank provided financing for the project.
“We can be proud that together we have managed to implement this important and ambitious project that became a symbol of unbreakable friendship and cooperation between Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, embodiment of brotherhood and good neighborliness of our people,” President Berdimuhamedow said in May 2014.