Monday, May 28, 2012 -
Kazakhstan’s state railway firm said Wednesday it has inked an agreement with Japan’s Toyota conglomerate to boost transshipment at an economic zone on the Kazakh-Chinese border.
Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) said in a statement it signed a memorandum of cooperation and interaction with Toyota Tsusho Corp, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp., to increase the flow of international cargoes via the Khorgos border zone.
The transnational free trade center occupies a two-square mile of territory straddling both countries, intended as a hub on a planned transcontinental corridor stretching between China and Europe.
Toyota will be expected to implement integrated logistics products that can handle an anticipated increase in volumes of overland transshipments between the East Asian countries and the West.
Kazakhstan is especially interested in boosting two-way traffic from Japan, South Korea, and China, with Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Central Asia, via Khorgos.
The parties also agreed on adopting ways “to increase the flow of Japanese and Kazakhstan transit cargoes and improve the attractiveness of the routes with the use of multi-modal transport,” KTZ said in the statement on its web site railways.kz.
The tentative agreement was signed by the heads of both companies on the sidelines of the 5th Astana Economic Forum in the Kazakh capital.