ASTANA — Central Asia’s next logistics challenge is no longer building highways. It is ensuring that roads, railways, ports, warehouses, customs systems and digital platforms operate as a single, seamless network. That was the central message from a panel discussion on transport connectivity held during the Eurasian Development Bank’s (EDB) Annual Meeting on June 25, where government officials, development financiers, transport operators and international organizations discussed that the region’s competitiveness will increasingly depend on coordination rather than concrete alone.
Speakers at a panel discussion on transport connectivity during the Eurasian Development Bank’s (EDB) Annual Meeting, June 25. Photo credit: EDB The discussion reflected how geopolitical shifts have reshaped global supply chains and elevated the strategic importance of overland trade routes, including the Middle Corridor and the North-South corridor.
Alexei Skatin, vice chairman of the Management Board at the Eurasian Development Bank, said Central Asia should no longer be viewed merely as a transit bridge between Asia and Europe. “Much less often do we remember that 80 million people live here. This is already an independent market with significant domestic demand, interesting not only from the perspective of transit, but also as a destination for goods and for developing trade within the region,” he said.
Skatin noted that every government represented at the forum had spoken about economic expansion rather than stagnation. “If economies are growing, consumption is growing. In this sense, Central Asia and the EDB member states are becoming a self-sufficient market.
Our task is to ensure that the value moving along Central Asia’s highways, the Trans-Caspian route and the North-South corridor does not simply pass through the region, but remains here,” he said. According to Skatin, geopolitical uncertainty has transformed land corridors from alternative routes into increasingly strategic trade arteries while positioning Central Asia at the crossroads of East-West and North-South commerce.
Kazakhstan is responding with both physical and digital infrastructure investments. Anar Gabdullina, deputy chairman of the Committee for Roads at the Ministry of Transport, said the ministry is developing E-Zholdar (e-roads). This unified digital road management platform will integrate information systems from KazAvtoZhol, the National Center for Quality of Road Assets and KazdorNII.
The platform will include digital road passports, maintenance records, public monitoring tools and administrative services, allowing authorities to collect and manage road data through a single system. Gabdullina also said Kazakhstan is reconstructing 37 border checkpoints, expanding crossing capacity, installing new inspection systems and creating improved service areas for passengers and freight carriers.
“All this will help reduce queues and increase the capacity of border crossings,” she said, adding that the ministry is also eliminating bottlenecks across the country’s road network while continuing large-scale development of international transport corridors.
For Vadim Zakarenko, general delegate to Eurasia at Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA), today’s geopolitical realities have reinforced the importance of regional integration. “The Middle Corridor and the Silk Road corridor provide opportunities for trade, for access to new markets, and for building new trade links between countries,” he said.