Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Russia’s FESCO transport group and Kazakhstan’s transport and logistics company IFC COLOS have agreed to expand cooperation in rail container transportation across Central Asia.
The agreement provides for the mutual use of container flatcars to ensure stable operations on container services passing through the Dostyk and Altynkol border crossings.
The document was signed by Maxim Bukhanov, general director of FESCO Central Asia, and Arailym Artykbaeva, commercial director of IFC COLOS, at the TransLogistica Kazakhstan exhibition in Astana.
The partnership is expected to help FESCO use its rail rolling stock more efficiently to develop import and transit freight traffic through Kazakhstan. The companies also aim to increase shipments under the FESCO Caravan Shuttle service, which connects China with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Bukhanov said cooperation with IFC COLOS would provide greater flexibility in transport planning and improve the use of container flatcars in Kazakhstan and on transit routes. This would help ensure reliable container shipments for customers, including through the Dostyk and Altynkol border crossings, he said.
IFC COLOS is a Kazakhstan-based transport and logistics integrator that organises international and domestic freight transportation across Kazakhstan, China, CIS countries and other destinations. Its own rail fleet includes open-top wagons and container flatcars measuring 60 and 80 feet. The equipment enables the company to assemble container trains, transport various types of cargo and provide integrated logistics solutions.
One of IFC COLOS’s key infrastructure assets is a terminal in the Khorgos–Eastern Gate Special Economic Zone. It handles cargo and containers, provides transshipment services and supports international freight movements between Kazakhstan and China.
FESCO is one of Russia’s largest transport and logistics groups, operating in port, rail and integrated logistics services. Its businesses include Vladivostok Commercial Sea Port, intermodal operator FESCO Integrated Transport, refrigerated container operator Dalreftrans, Transgarant and FESCO Trans.
The group operates terminal complexes in Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk, Tomsk, Vladivostok, Kaliningrad and Rostov-on-Don. Its container fleet has a capacity of 200,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), while its fleet of container flatcars comprises nearly 15,000 units.
FESCO also manages a fleet of more than 30 transport vessels.
In November 2023, a controlling stake in FESCO was transferred to Russia’s state-owned Rosatom corporation by presidential decree.
