President: Special attention should be paid to the Port of Kuryk.

President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev delivered a message to the people of Kazakhstan at a joint session of the chambers of Parliament. In his Message, the Head of state announced the development of marine infrastructure, a separate role in which should be assigned to the port of Kuryk.

"We need a holistic plan for the development of marine infrastructure, in which a separate role should be assigned to the port of Kuryk. It will become a full-fledged logistics cluster, such as Aktau. No less important is the international North–South corridor, which opens our country access to the ports of the Persian Gulf. It is necessary to gradually double the capacity of the railway part of this route," President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said.

First of all, the President of Kazakhstan noted that it is necessary to begin the modernization of the Kazakhstan section of the Bolashak – Chelyabinsk railway line.

"For effective integration into international routes, it is important to provide a full range of logistics services. The airports of Astana, Almaty, Shymkent and Aktobe should become multimodal centers providing competitive and high-quality services for the accumulation and distribution of cargo. In general, the development of the industry will require an adequate tariff and regulatory policy, active attraction of private investment," the head of state noted.

The Head of State noted that the Trans-Caspian route should play an important role in strengthening our transit potential. In the medium term, the volume of traffic along this corridor can be increased fivefold. To do this, we need to join forces with partner countries – China, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey.

"It is necessary to build a new Dry Port at the Bakhty crossing, accelerate the construction of a container hub in Aktau, expand port facilities on the Black Sea along the Middle Corridor. The construction of Kazakhstan terminals in China's Xi'an and the Georgian port of Poti has already started. These are real examples of how the Chinese megaproject "Belt and Road" is interfaced with our national initiatives. The realization of transport potential depends on our constructive and good-neighborly relations with all neighboring countries without exception, including Russia, China, our good neighbors in Central and South Asia," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said.