Page 52 - bne magazine September 2020 russia melting

52 Opinion
bne September 2020
Freight truckers still run the show when it comes to Chinese goods heading into Kyrgyzstan.
China pushes on with Central Asia trade ambitions despite missing Kyrgyz rail link
Emil Avdaliani in Tbilisi
Despite the pandemic, China’s recent moves in Central Asia indicate it harbours growing ambitions in a region that it sees as playing a jumpstart role for its multi-continental Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for modern infrastructure that expands trade and investment.
In early June, China unveiled a new transportation corridor running through to Uzbekistan, via Kyrgyzstan. A freight
train left the Chinese city of Lanzhou for the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, carrying some 230 tonnes of electrical appliances valued at $2.6mn. On the return journey, it was to bring
back $1mn of Uzbek cotton. Initially, the corridor was to only involve a railway, but due to unending construction delays in Kyrgyzstan, China and Uzbekistan agreed on a rail-to-road-to- rail line. Goods departing from China reach Kyrgyzstan, where they are unloaded, before being trucked to Uzbekistan where they are once more loaded onto a train to facilitate the final journey to Tashkent.
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China for decades held unsuccessful negotiations with successive governments in Bishkek for the construction of the near-400-kilometre Kyrgyzstan section of the railway link. But the generally unstable situation in the country, its poor economic performance and, not least, Kyrgyz nationalistic sentiment against the growing presence of the Chinese in Kyrgyzstan’s economy meant the railway project was perpetually postponed.
For Kyrgyzstan, Chinese investment in the construction
of the railway would by some estimates increase its rail transportation by up to 30%. The China-Kyrgyzstan- Uzbekistan railway would also shorten the time required to transport goods between the three countries. Moreover, an attraction for Bishkek would be that the railway would be key in enabling the country’s goods to reach Europe while bypassing Russia.